Phil's Opera and Musical Opinion Page

thwarted -the essence of the ring

2012-02-11T22:35:00.000-06:00

It seems to be at the heart of Wagner's Ring. Everyone thwarting everyone else. Or trying to. Interesting that neither the Greeks nor the Romans tell the story of the end of their gods. The Norse do. Its a sad tale as the Gods lose the will to fight. Yet the Rhine Maidens avoid this. Aren't they gods?

Also sad is the rhetoric of the classical light composers. No longer satisfied with creating highly successful easy listening music also need to position their soft music with hard speech that excludes all other musical approaches evidently. At one time rock bands or their handlers used to say that "if Mozart was alive today he'd be in a group like the Dave Clark Five." Now University trained composers are inspired to say that Mozart got it wrong.

Sad indeed.

Acid Bath

2012-02-04T15:30:00.000-06:00

perculator

2012-02-04T14:52:00.000-06:00

submerged

2012-02-04T14:50:00.000-06:00

thoughts on blogging for FJO

2012-01-10T19:44:00.007-06:00

Frank J Oteri recently suggested to me that blogging was like a newspaper and my penchant for criticizing my peers reflected poorly on me, burned bridges and made all composers seem stereotypical cranks etc. It stung. So perhaps it is time for me to reassess my activities. The comments below are my first thoughts on the matter--more coming. PF

About blogging:

One problem with blogging is that no matter how hard the blogger tries there is always an element of avatar, a created or distorted persona, in the post. This distortion ranges from small to large scale. So, it is unlike a newspaper because a paper not only projects a unified outlook but only publishes articles edited to reflect that outlook. Blogs do not.

Blogs can be an equalizer for the powerless, but the reverse is also true. Powerful folks can pretend, and that bugs me.

As for criticism of my peers, many times I try humor to get to the heart some misrepresentations. What I discovered is this:

The field of music composition has absolutely no sense of humor about itself.* Many of my humorous posts were misinterpreted and even complained about by folks trying to sell us the Brooklyn bridge. Well perhaps just lease it. Several of my readers told me some folks just don't get it.

So I say this: of the thousands of people who blog, few, if any, really converse. The conversation in blogging is pretend; the distances between us are not closer but farther apart.

In one case I think I did fine service for our profession.
This was when I took exception to a troll (a person, anonymous of course, who posts only to be mean) while another blogger tried to dance around them. I came to the point!

Troll: "None of you have what it takes to compose a Rachmaninoff 2nd"
Phil: "Commission me and find out."

* My first professional work was a satire on composers and performers "Meditations and Satires" a Fromm Commission. It went over all right and off a cliff. Oddly a few years later it was performed at the behest of choral festival at Tanglewood and was a big success. Have you heard of that?

2 things -spoils for the rich.

2011-12-03T10:45:00.000-06:00

Well it seems that Cincinnati opera new works went for glamor and Hollywood. Again trained composers locked out.

It seems to me to be the height of hypocrisy to have Philip Glass, a millionaire composer bought and payed for by billionaires, to speak for the "occupy" movement.

Cassandra calling... Again.

2011-11-09T17:01:00.007-06:00

Ok another opera. In this case created not by the composer but again by the administration. During the rehearsals I hear nothing about art but only if it will sell. It doesn't actually matter if it does or not. Just by being performed it already is a success. The Muralization continues.

So...

Not a bad idea for an opera and the composer has a good feeling for harmony. The story is told.

Naturally I found some problems.

Simple linear story telling.
Addition of a love story that doesn't quite mesh.
Musically the beginning has all the fireworks.
The end fizzles.
Overall Its musically unbalanced. This could be fixed. Better to end with the male chorus singing a rousing tune.
Melody? No tunes at all. A very conversational setting.
When their are tunes they were composed by someone else.
All the vocal line are derived from the harmony either hetrophonic or arpeggios with the occasional upper neighbor note. --All out of the harmony.
The voice never leads the voice never has the melody. So the characters are never in charge of their music even the bad guys.
The music does not tell the story it frames the story.
The registers are too high for the singers. The scansion is good but the registers and the multi-language setting make it still hard to understand.
Instrumental approach to character --their vocal part does not explain them, their accompaniment tries to but all the accompaniments are similar. Only events get noted.
All the parts have the same vocal lines just some are even higher. See Les Miz.
The use of quotation is not persuasive.
The layering of old quotations and new original music seems a simple effect. Its been done.
In fact there is much sophisticated simplicity at hand. Too many long notes in the strings. To many long held chords.
Character is not clearly defined because of the outside in approach.
The scene is described by the accompaniment not by the singers. Cinematic approach. Music as underscoring as framework for something else.

Well, heads or tails?

addenda:
The MN critics loved it, but that was expected. Just as the MN audience always give a standing ovation to everything. I stand by my thoughts.

Hard week?

2011-09-13T15:11:00.000-05:00

OK like most composers I too face rejection. Oddly my last two rejections were of note in that they were not noted. That is in both cases they didn't bother to inform any of the losers that they were rejected. Rather they only displayed the winners in a web post. Kind of like middle school music theater selection. Worse, one institution mentioned that the winners were posted on their home site only as an aside in a blog post on NMB on another subject. I might have waited for weeks to find out. The purpose of a rejection letter is not just acknowledgement but also a reminder that things can change and this years rejected might be on next years play list.

I have to say how unprofessional.

ah success! Since I have made it a point not to read the NMB post I will work independently

2011-09-05T10:34:00.000-05:00

There are many kinds of success. Most involve other people. Here is my list not in any particular order.

public, the mass public
among ones peers
critical
d'estime not quite the same as critical because this one implies that only critics like it.
personal
artistic
financial
log rolling, the quid pro quo, agreement
artist of the moment
buzz (the art seems less important than the artist).
manufactured, that is paid for
private, that is a success within a closed community
sympathetic - for example David Healthgot's sold out concerts
political, the ability to attact powerful friends
political subject (editorial)- the subject is more important than the art or the artist
institutional, gatekeepers, grants etc. the ability to get to the means of production.
snobbery (Well, they like it!)
scandal

Of course these types can exist in any combination with different percentages of each included. Still the only success that interests me is artistic.

BUDDY STUDIES THE SCORE and some notes

2011-08-22T17:30:00.002-05:00

I've been working on some serial stuff again. Working with multiple row formations. I had a look at the Europeans not just Zimmerman. Anyway I want density and clarity. Stacking too many notes makes them indistinct, yet that is want I want to explore; the point of incomprehensibility. Where there is almost too much to control or understand. I need to skate that edge rather than dwell on either side. For that I need exact notation yet not too fussy either or it becomes an effect. I need the parts to clash and tremolo effects won't do it unless you set up several in opposition. Then its like trying to press a beach-ball into water. Good idea! My procedure involves the use of figuration and separate parts in different rhythmic subdivisions; 4/5/3/2 etc. Discrete rhythms are not used continuously and are broken up. More clash that way. For this technique I explore 5 related rows expanded from 6 note sets with come common elements a 4 note chord C G F# A# This chord generates a lot of intervals actually all of them. I also use these 4 notes: D G# F# B which create different possibilities. I suppose that it is easy to relate any chromatic formation to any other so the sound is important.
This is the basis of harmony--besides my ear.

The use of figuration came late to me. Mostly through my tonal satirical works. On the other hand the melodic force is channeled into a different presentation. At least for me. More on this later!

what we have left

2011-07-29T10:54:00.001-05:00

The point is this since we no longer live in the time of great composers all we have left is success.

Phil Sells Out!!

2011-07-26T13:50:00.003-05:00

Go a head and buy it!!!
Here too:

http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/albumList.jsp;jsessionid=B654657F58FC229BDC422533428552B0?name_id1=163975&name_role1=1&bcorder=1

A little more on this subject

2011-07-22T18:14:00.008-05:00

Nothing gets my dander up in the alleged style wars like the “straw man” argument.

It goes like this: The public ignores new music (usually they mean their new music) because of those composers (straw person) who create dissonant/hard to understand music that turns audiences off. This can also be combined with the university composer ivory tower slam. The point is that accessibility and any other kind of music is incompatible or at odds.

Ouch.

The ironies are thick here. The point of the straw man argument is to gain sympathy for the claimant being oppressed by someone who supposedly welds great power over them, yet the unnamed can't defend themselves. Nor do they. The final irony is that the claimant does not notice that this great power does not preclude them from going public and having success as there are no repercussions.

The new classical light composers claim that the neo-romantics are the problem just as the neo-romantics claimed that the atonalists were the problem. The atonalists claim that the new accessibility is the problem etc. It always seems that the problem with new music is somebody else. The older generation? Personal responsibility? Forget it.

The reason why the straw man arguments is used is that it works. That is the public believes it. One could ask why everyone is so inclined to take everything at face value? Where is the critical thinking? Anyway the Straw man argument is a fraud.

The bottom line is this:

The success of one does not preclude the success of another.

Well, an explantion of the "artist of the moment" - by Dwight Macdonald

2011-07-16T11:59:00.004-05:00

Here it is, in the guise of a review of a novel, perhaps an explanation of the success of some unnamed recent theatrical works. The whole concept of buying a book one can't finish but that one is proud to own and display as owned has its musical equivalent.

By Love Possessed [J.G. Cozzen] is his bid for immortality.
It is Literature or it is nothing. Unfortunately none of
the reviewers has seriously considered the
second alternative. The book is not only a
best-seller, it is a succes d'estime....."

""He is not a literary man, he: is a writer,"
he observed, [Bernard de Voto about J.G. Cozzens]
a little obscurely but I see what he means. "There are a handful like him in every age. Later on it
turns out they were "the ones who wrote
that age's literature."

The wheel has comically come full circle: it used to be
those odd, isolated, brilliant writers who
were in advance of their times-the Stendhals,
the Melvilles, the Joyces, and Rimbauds-
who later on were discovered to be
"the ones who wrote that age's literature";
but now it is the sober, conscientious plodders,
who have a hard time just keeping up
with the procession, whose true worth is
temporarily obscured by their modish
avant-garde competitors.

staying positive

2011-07-07T11:18:00.003-05:00

Its been a struggle. Lets face it 0 for 7 for grants. A world that's not that interested in seeing the urgency of this moment. Music education included. The false assumption that what happens is what is right. People have no short term memory and forget the lesson of David Amram, Elizabeth Swados. and the many other composers of the moment.

The City Opera has staked their future on an amateur composer.
The Met is interested in raw beginners.

In the case of 1. I hope they are getting a lot of money from the composer and perhaps the Canadian government as well.

In the case of 2. It must be remembered that what seems to be new, Murder orchestrated on the internet by avatar, is perhaps too close to a work like "The Shop Around The Corner, or She Loves Me" That is the question of relationships strung together by anonymity is not new.

Of course my observations don't matter as the reception of these works are a forgone conclusion.

Not enough new work is produced to create alternative voices. My voice included.
Its easy to criticize others I know but I do have some work to show. I know that there is a place for me at the table.

well this needs a short update --the New Rococo

2011-06-17T11:05:00.002-05:00

It always seemed to me that the composers who created "experimental music" were strictly conservative. So much of this music (acoustic or electric) is strictly tonal and unadventurous no matter the style.

The gesture composers seem to come from a negative and a positive.

Positive: to create their own sonic world from scratch, just like Schoenberg or Varese.
Negative: because they hate that music.

The unintended consequence is that now everyone wants to create their own sonic world from scratch and low and behold they all sound the same. Hence the title the new Rococo. What I mean is the Rococo was a time where everyone, and I mean everyone, composed in a new style that ended up being not an end in itself but a transition. The music was popular for a time and completely forgettable.

Schoenberg's music which had a long slow climb and some short vogues and real and constant opposition. Motion music had no opposition and was aided by corporate support from tobacco and alcohol companies. Motion music's virtue is that its anything but serial music. Oddly the sound is associated with a cool intelligence, that is its visual cue in movies etc. Whereas serial music visual cue is intense emotion.

A few more notes about the older post:

the enemy of my enemy is my friend - the enemy being trained composers who compose dissonant music.
The basis of motion music is not classical music but popular music.
Consonance is not tonality.

The heart of post modern: Creating new instruments and music to support them.

2011-06-05T13:46:00.012-05:00

Bear with me. Stockhausen created an opera part of which requires an instrumental performance in moving helicopters. I saw this on video. John Cage creates a work where the player doesn't play but turns a page in time. (It would be easy to say that this is simply a theater piece for a musician to perform, Mr. Cage was a theater composer after all.) Recent European music plays a lot with timbrel similarity and disparity. In the vocal realm an opera can have editorial that can't be perceived for hearing the work.
Sound artists create works that are site specific.

These works have a similarity In effect they are creating new instruments. That is the instruments are not playing music so much as the "music" creates a singular and unique instrument. Some times its a disposable one performance only work. Other times its features are reusable. The "laptop" is not the instrument itself, rather it is part of a larger exploration of time, space, and event. A part of many.

A performance in a moving helicopter implies that the moving space itself is part of a site specific instrument. Is the video a useful recreation or not?

Naturally all musical ensembles and performing abilities have their particular time and place to perform; chamber music, grand opera, solo piano, recital. Then where do beginners, advanced, students and professionals and different styles might and in what context perform? Strictly speaking these rules are no longer the case. The space can become part of the work.

An orchestra has long been considered an instrument with many performers, so too are bands and many other instrumental configurations. The creation of "super instruments" that is joining several similar or different acoustic/electric instruments into a single formation or unit that act as one instrument (that is mostly rhythmic or gestural unison) is quite popular especial in Europe. That is combining an instrument with a voice or voices, or electronics as a single formation. Or the melody, the obbligato, and the accompaniment as one multifarious singularity. All kinds of composers and sound artists are creating sounds and music that explore and develop these new solo and multi-player instruments.

It seems to me that post modernism is focused on music that creates new instruments, rather than in modernism which used instruments to create new music. If that makes any
sense. Thoughts?

Flying blind 2

2011-05-05T14:35:00.002-05:00

Well I got the text idea finally and then the entire American Opera section completed.

My Opera's American--American Style
Mr. Editorial--Early Baroque Monteverdi
Repetition Help!--Motion Music
Household Opera Scene -- American Musical
Scene Change - Polytonal

So anyway I almost forgot about the scene, a duet, in Wagner style--lets not and say we did --ends up like this;

Wolfram von Eshenbach falls for Brangane on an off night and sparks fly.

Their problem: they don't have a story that connects them. What will happen?

the more things change--NMB does new opera --again!

2011-05-04T15:17:00.002-05:00

Ok its this folks the difference between a classical composer and a sound artist is this:

Technique is the basis of all classical music, even experimental music, and even Opera.
Technique, in all arts and for all its history, is just another style for the sound artist.

The recent trend of incomprehensibility in new music theater is not an evolution of opera but rather a devolution.

That is because the sound artist/composer has no other choice but to be incomprehensible. They lack the musical tools. Their work is modeled on other incomprehensible works, or is just a one off. Yet it is amazing how similar all these works are. Sadly and again this work is not an Opera -why does it have to be?-no voice, and no interest in the voice, no music no character (well perhaps a tiny bit but not defined by the music or voice) really this work is a visual Tableau.

The main focus besides the visual is on the editorial explanation of the work which is impossible to understand from the performance itself.

Yet the fact is that these works get performed whereas works by trained composers go begging and win the Pulitzer prize.

the more things change--NMB does new opera

2011-04-13T22:29:00.003-05:00

NMB features another dross on "new opera"--again rather "new music theater" Operatic terms are used as if they had some meaning or relationship to the subject at hand. An opera to me references known opera. New Music Theater can reference anything. Composers are mentioned but not their operatic works. It seems that these folks believe that they are not only involved in opera but are leading the way.

Nope.

These works, and there are a whole lot o' 'em, start with incomprehensibility and work to illuminate an editorial (or pre-compositional) program far removed from the theatrical experience of the work itself. Its as if the text of Joyce's Ulysses was optional as long as it hints at the more important design.

In 2 different posts one by DS we see this quote--

"Referring to the epic theater of Brecht and Artaud's Theater of Cruelty, ... contemporary French philosopher Jacques Rancière argues that..."

As if reading a single "important" book explains theater. Better to read and see those plays. Then again why only the French perspective? Music theater or any theater is international after all. Is French theater the most important kind of theater? We can suggest with some certainty that French opera is perhaps not the most important type of Opera. Why use a text on straight theater to explicate opera? There are differences. Of course in both NMB instances no has any opera or vocal composition or legit theater experience. Or any need to reference previous works except in order to say what they are not doing.

Sadly these works are all alike. This is because these things are not done out of artistic choice but by necessity. The compositional palette is too limited. Meaningless text is frequently a crutch that devolves on the performers. Naturally everyone's first step into incomprehensibility is obvious and so recognizable to an audience. That means that extreme simplicity and obviousness must be maintained to make it work. All complexity is saved for the editorial. Specifically the approach of the sound artist relies too heavily on creating good editorial and not creating great theater.

Of course just getting the thing produced is note worthy enough. That explains NMB.

Anyway I should not complain composers don't get to decide what an opera is --gatekeepers do.

Flying Blind

2011-03-25T18:29:00.002-05:00

Well you see its typical for me to compose vocal music all at once --that is I write the libretto or text as I compose the music. I weld them together. Sometimes I have the text first. This inspires me. So.. Ok, I get started on another Opera Bob comedy duet--late Wagner this time--with the title--Lets Not and Say We Did!
The idea was Siegfried or something like him shows up, asking our soprano to give up her immortality to raise his brats clean his house wait on his mother in law etc etc. So she says Lets not and say we did, pointing out that that stuff never actually happens in the opera at least not the last 278,000 plus times they tried it. If its not on stage it doesn't happen for a character--just talk see.

So I start it and before I know it I have 7 minutes of music, vocal lines too, and no text. Can't think of one good rhyme. Yet the work gets longer and is almost finished, if you can say a late Wagner scene gets finished.

Waiting on the text..Who knows where it will go? I'll keep you posted.

Questions for Temp'6ra

2011-02-21T14:00:00.006-06:00

The place of contemporary music on the cultural scene

In the United States, where success is measured in fame and money, there is no place. Even less than
for poetry. The trend has changed away from an intellectual approach to composition. The younger
composers observing this are now trying to redefine contemporary music along the lines of David
Bowie and in that way break back in to a success. Their problem is that they want to compete with and
be one with Elliot Carter and Eminem in the same breath. Though interesting things may develop I don't foresee any cultural change.
Not for the music that I am interested in that is Serial and Free Jazz improvisation.

Since no one is in charge of the arts scene the Universities
simply take what is happening as the focal point. They don't dig deeper and why should they?
The analytical tools they use are not style specific and can be used to support or describe any musical
style. Anyway no one reads their journals outside their own memberships. The million dollar pay day is the price of cultural relevancy here and that is reserved for film composers or the composer of the moment who creates a visual new music theater work.

In the United States my place as a composer is defined by whatever else I do besides composing.

How to develop a «contemporary thought» of music?

Music evolves and every generation stakes its claim but we have seen that with art a majority rule is
fatuous. Good music doesn't always fit the trends of our time. Fundamentals of music have not
changed but the approaches have. This includes music created by the art school trained sound artist. They may have no musical background yet use music in a visual way with technology and multimedia. Further the visual
arts and technology have rendered music generic. Though no one would rewrite a digital novel most
of hip-hop music is sampled work created by others—essentially remakes of oldies. So many
arrangements of composers music (Band) that I hear are also like this. It makes the creator of music even less safe
among the profession.

To have a contemporary thought of music we need to decide are we:

1. Inclusive or exclusive?
2. What are our shared values?
3. What do we value?
4. How would we define competence?
5. National or International?
6. Indigenous?

Is the dependence to cultural institutions inevitable?

The problem here is that in the United states the audience is out of the picture. Music is defined by
institutions, gate keepers, Universities, granting organizations etc. On the other hand if you want to
work for the “public” you must pander to its needs.
The answer here is yes because all those entrepreneurial independents end up becoming institutions
themselves.

How music-teaching structures should improve their involvement in music of today?

There is a terrible disconnect between the new music faculties and the education faculties in the United
States. There is no connection at all here. The level of ignorance is total. There is no knowledge of
the K-12 curriculum and how it does, or does not, cover recent music.
Any change would be great—but that would be an institutional change. And sadly it always seems that change comes from the top down from the folks that know the least to the folks that know the most.

How to create new organs to promote contemporary music?

You would have to break up the specialist turf wars and find common ground for competing styles. Is a successful composer to be portrayed as the winner of a popularity contest or as a chosen insider? Perhaps the leader of a style team?
Create a magazine that was inclusive yet scholarly. But it must not be beholden to the new music
industry or the colleges. Perhaps you could call your new magazine The Losers.

The problem with composer organizations today is they are about featuring only the most successful or the ones with an important new event.

On the other hand there are so many composers.

Can networking in an international solidarity be a long-term solution?

It can help.

Dr. Philip Fried,
Independent Composer
Saint Paul MN USA

Well there they go again....

2011-02-19T12:20:00.002-06:00

"...The London audience ate it up. But so did I, .....The ovations were tumultuous...".

"...can probably claim to be breaking new ground in the scene in which Anna Nicole receives breast-implant surgery ..."
“The libretto has countless lines that cannot be printed in a family newspaper or Web site. And ‘Anna Nicole’ revels shamelessly in the crass, sleazy side of American culture, which may be too easy a target.”

"..Besides, I doubt that Her Majesty will be attending this show..."

Well so far its seem that my crystal ball is working. The folks who love music won't like it. Visual visual visual. The music merely window dressing.
Of course there is nothing sleazy about the English setting a sleazy American story. Nothing crass in the United Kingdom. As for Jazz I think we have more debt to Andre Kostelanetz than Andre Previn whose Street Car Named Desire. is obviously in the picture.

Really this is a musical masquerading as an opera.

Anna Nicole and the muralization of opera

2011-02-13T11:33:00.003-06:00

Of course the rehearsal are closed --this was the directive at the last meeting in California of the gatekeepers.
Why not? This is certainly not about the composer--who? Rather it is an attempt to create a fashionable event Any leaks would spoil it. It has nothing else other than surprise to show for it. Of course it will be an artistic failure. Done deal that. Yet as a mural it could be a success.

What do I mean by muralization?

This work was created, and if produced "correctly," should attract the fashionable folk. That is the part of traditional opera that will be maintained. The Opera opening as an event of fashion. That is everything is there but the content. The title alone is seen as worth the price of admission. This is the same as the faux political works coming from America. As for content this work is simply one of many holding actions filling a slot for new music that isn't new. No wonder they don't want critics spoiling the fun and perhaps keeping the important folks from showing up. At least Opera singers can reasonable replicate Anna's figure.

I doubt they would want to replicate her voice.

Phil invents a new word

2011-02-04T21:59:00.001-06:00

Firony, Fironic - false or hypocritical irony.

Why this work is popular

2011-02-04T15:39:00.011-06:00

Of course a work can be successful just for being successful but that is not the whole story. The work in question is revived for all the wrong reasons. Mostly for what it is not; serial, music centered, dramatically comprehensible, or singable.

So if this work is successful in spite of all these flaws why then?

The history of Opera and Opera houses includes the fact that they are, have been, and still are the official artistic statement of governments, their supporters, and the wealthy. Just visit the old Granier Palace. The new Paris opera may look different but look at the folks who pay the bills. America is no different in its attitude towards institutional opera. Considering the supposed liberalism of its authors this work Nixon in China seems a success for the wrong reasons. That is the public is not clamoring for productions of this work the gatekeepers are. Unlike Diego Rivera this artistic endeavor was built to suit.

No.

This work, for all its supposed radicalism, happens to bring opera back to its State sanctioned roots.

A Mural praising our beloved leaders.

Phil Fried

A Milton Memory

2011-01-29T18:24:00.010-06:00

In the late 80's Milton was the only man of importance who would see me, well see me more than once. We had dinner many times. (Asian) I'm afraid, after all, his attempts to help boost my career were for naught.

Anyway.

Those dinner were memorable. One story Milton told about Ralph Shapey was the time Ralph tried to apply to Princeton for a degree in composition order to get considered for a University position (Ralph only had a HS diploma). Roger Sessions had to talk him out of it. Saying that Ralph had important music to compose instead.   Anyway he had more important things to do. They were right. It wasn't long before Ralph got his gig at the U of Chicago, first as a conductor than as a composition teacher. I think he also meant this as advice for self.

But the thing I cherish the most is that Milton never played the brilliant man with me. We were just two composers having dinner together.

Phil Fried

PS

He respected my work on his Third Quartet, which signaled the end of my career as a theorist. "They just don't get it"

Partially published here -- Log in as a guest:

http://www.philfried.com/compositionlessons/course/view.php?id=3

Velocity and Metric Class as Formal Determinants in Milton Babbitt's Third String Quartet

This was going to be published in Sonus but with some timely bad advice from some important theorists that didn't happen either.

2 new songs--the poet chimes in!

2011-01-20T21:59:00.000-06:00

I just finished 2 new songs with texts by Heid E.Erdrich

I heard her at a reading here and I found 2 songs spoke to me. The composing came quickly --I sent her a Sibelius recording of the songs and the score--this is what she said about how I set of Le Main...

Amazingly beautiful and exactly the tone I mean in what I wrote.
How do you make musical abstraction sound like wind and water?
What are the instruments involved?
Oh, I do hope I can be there for the performance.

I asked If I could quote her--I mean Heid had never heard a note of any of my music. I mentioned that a lot of my work concerns the 4 elements; earth, air, water, and fire.

Imagine hitting a home run with your poet first time out! Her reply.

Yes, of course, quote me! Of course you can set The Cure.

Although I have hardly any understanding of music, I often dream music along with words, so the poems have a score of sorts. One even had an instrument speaking the text--it was a clarinet. I can still hear it.

When Leslie Miller was helping me edit my first book she kept asking me to keep the elements balanced. She would say: We've had enough creatures of the air and water, now we need some earth and fire." Or words to that effect.

This is really a thrill Phil, thanks!

Good news--these works will be done in NY--stay tuned!!

A bucket of perversity - new music embraces the star system

2011-01-14T15:44:00.000-06:00

I think the title say it all.
What is the difference between new music and the new music scene from before and now?

Though the percentages of music created in different styles might change a bit with every generation those styles endure. They have for some time now. So every generation presents a different and particular stylistic focus to their new music.

Besides the music, it used to be that we admired new music folks because of their ability and knowledge.
Now its all about their (alleged) popularity. There is now a whole bunch of official unofficial performance spaces where the mainstream avant-garde, from the best schools, hold court.

And what was the price to pay for this manufactured success?
No serial music.No counterpoint. An unquestioned adherence to the mainstream. Dropping any music that might question this new music's need to be inspired by popular music.
The seriousness of the older generation remains, yet it is the sizzle that gets that focus not the steak.

Focus on the performers not the composers.
They are glamorous aren't they? They do tend to be a little older than the composers who merely pass through. The performers maintain a career while the composers come and go.

The cost of the new music excludes production outside the University/Institutional/Millionaire complex.

Since today's critical focus is only on this mainstream other voices that might be viable are ignored.

Reading other people's blogs

2011-01-10T18:59:00.000-06:00

Of course these mostly concern the mainstream. Something I only have tangential experience with.

What did I learn?

That the chosen few are upset that their, and their friends, puff pieces in major publications aren't slavish enough.
That the new music world is still deadly serious. No sense of humor.
That its good to be friends with Yoko Ono and to mention it frequently.
That the vital serial music I compose is irrelevant.
That the music education crises does not exist other than opportunities for important people to be an artist in residence.
Only those who have a club membership or University position, or both, have the right to an opinion on serial music. Even if they don't compose it or like it.
That the opera world is in "good" hands.
Insiders pretend to be outsiders.
For that matter any kind of criticism of insider composers is off limits.
New Music Box a non commercial music blog and voice of the AMC is ignored.
The successful are good.
There is no urgency to maintain a balance of styles or opinions. Only an arena to take advantage of.

Being Heard

2011-01-04T21:49:00.000-06:00

I suppose that at some point you just get tired of not being heard. That said all things being equal, usually not, institutional performances are political plums. Bad music pushes out the good through sheer numbers and the status quo..... blah blah blah....

Enough of that line of thought.

My Fathers collected recordings are here. Louis "Leo Freed" Fried All except the original cast of Carousel. You can buy that.
To here him sing is not something that I can't explain. In my early years his voice was not quite this.

It is my Fathers voice.

What can one say?

My recordings are also here. Necessity for this?---Now that The classical lounge joins AOL and geocities in extinction. Many more to come. As the web becomes explicitly and complicity the exclusive handmaiden to big media.

Phil Fried

The status quo saves music?

2010-11-11T15:44:00.000-06:00

Or the more things change the more they stay the same.

The idea that an advance in marketing equals an advance in art is fatuous.

Most of the organizations listed are doing nothing new. Those sited for “new music” present cross overs into popular music. That in itself is not a bad thing yet there is a musical bias against music centered works. Music is just overlaid on the more important text and visual elements.

The conservative nature of these endeavors is masked in a package of newness that is a hollow and empty thing. The empty promise that through mere activity art will eventually turn up. As if short term relevance or coolness replaces artistic content. The self described popularity of some of these activities is not predicated on the newness of the materials but rather on the freshness of the presentation. Which in itself is not new either. What was the Minnesota Opera in the days of H. Wesley Balk is no more. How soon they forget. Still it's a fine institution.

Fortunately the forces listed are not the only games in town

Also the statistics by percentages are misleading as they do not seem to include the increases in population??

OPERA?

2010-10-31T17:54:00.000-05:00

I'm just back from Baltimore where I gave a lecture recital on my improvisations at the livewire festival at UMBC.

The subject here is opera. I heard an interesting work there an "installation opera" Sam by Thomas Deleo and P Inman. A fine work but in his explanation of the work and its incomprehensibility --the text perhaps would make a great mobile. He said that opera is not restricted to meaning as meaning itself is a limitation. Fair enough but it was also proposed that no one who is serious about art is interested in meaning at this time. This seem in line with comments made at another event that orchestras are "museums" out of touch with composers. Usually this is stated because the folks who propose this can't get orchestras to perform their work. To say that its old technology does not convince either as a technological advance is not the same as an artistic advance. In any case its not true in Europe and it has more to do with American funding and the orchestra's gate keepers than with the orchestra. It also has to do with the mutually exclusive world of musical teams. Orchestras are instruments after all. They can be purchased.

Anyway technology is much better funded than the arts.

The problem again with calling this work an opera which it is in fact not (it is not informed by any opera I know of [that is crucial at least to me]) is that it makes it look as if people are composing operas when they are not. It also robs the genre of multimedia sound art of its of its own identity. On the other hand orchestra's are getting unfairly clobbered by the art world, and the perceived opera world, because of their perceived lack of flexibility and openness. Opera by chance gets a free ride. What I mean is this; opera institutions have no stake in these "sound art" events but oddly get the benefit merely by the association of title.

Go figure!

Alt Classical?

2010-08-12T13:49:00.000-05:00

The light classics have been around for some time. There is a need for this music as a balance. Why shouldn't the light classics be reinvented? Technically speaking Alt.Classical (Avant-pop) at least in this case is a combination of popular song and gesture composition. Yet the fact remains that as popular music it can't compete in its own arena. That's new. In the past folks who crossed over were well established and famous in the pop world. Most still are: Gershwin, Zappa, Paul McCartney etc. Audiences, or gate keepers, demanded their music.

Now it seems that the music is going in search of an audience. That's also new.

My point?

Avant-pop can't compete with Lady Gaga but it can compete against Milton Babbitt.

Reconciling songwriting and composition is a subject unto itself. Zappa, for example, maintained a distinction between his styles as have many other genre jumping composers. Avant-pop as far as listed is distinction free.

Phil's party for the pedantic-or why I will never teach in a university

2010-08-08T16:00:00.000-05:00

Ok Folks here is elegant proof of small mindedness. I was browsing the classical lounge where I keep my other blog and found this reply to a forum post I made which was added over a year later. The point was to upbraid me on my spelling and my Ph. D.

Here is my point; as much as I may speak about sonic prejudice evidently that is nothing compared to the ivory tower's text based, or educational, prejudice. My original post was created to help a young woman find a job in k-12 education. A serious question and something I know about. Yet that was overlooked for the more venial joys of showing off her supposed writing skills. Oddly they are not much better than mine (among other things she missed the spelling error of license). Lastly, one reason one does not criticize others posts for grammar and spelling is that technical issues can occur that interfere with the text format- the rules for on line are different. Of course there might be some other motivation for this.
Sigh.

[Well I just got confirmation that Norma hates recent music so much that she refuses to teach it. So her school assigns another teacher to team teach those classes].

My original post her reply and my e-mail to her today..

PhilFried.com

On: Mar 12, 2009 7:05 PM CDT
Your in NY I think? I haven't worked there in some time, at that time it was not to hard to get a licence --it was hard to find a position -of course its centralized now so it might be different. Right now saint Paul public schools is planing to cut instrumental music by 20 positions the entire elementary staff! http://keepimtinsaintpaul.blogspot.com/
anyway good luck--check for job availability before you start.

Dr. Phil

PhilFried.com

On: May 7, 2010 12:53 PM CDT
On: Mar 12, 2009 7:05 PM CDT

Your YOU'RE in NY I think? I haven't worked there in some time; at that time it was not to TOO hard to get a licence --it was hard to find a position -of course its IT'S centralized now so it might be different. Right now saint Paul public schools is planing PLANNING to cut instrumental music by 20 positions - the entire elementary staff! http://keepimtinsaintpaul.blogspot.com/

anyway good luck--check for job availability before you start.

Dr. Phil (REALLY? A DOCTORATE AND YOU CANNOT WRITE SIMPLE ENGLISH?)

On: Aug 8, 2010 2:50 PM CDT

Gee Norma
I just noticed your comments on Morgan's topic. Why yes I do have a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.

Besides your timely reply two thing; I'm LD dis-graphic and also -I guess you don't know -its considered bad manners to correct spelling for an on line posting.
Evidently you understood my comments. Writing and spelling happen to be very different issues. Besides that using all caps is considered yelling and as I remember that's not very good English either..
Your comments were off topic and rude.
I was just wondering how your spelling corrections so many months late were going to help Morgan find a job.

Have a nice day.

Dr. Phil Fried
Philfried.com

a little more detail

2010-08-02T20:14:00.000-05:00

I did like the music.
Since classical music is disappearing from media perhaps its a smart move to diversify.

I am.

What stumps me is why do the authors insist that this work has something to do with "classical music"? Especially as it's a song based music theater work. Of course the authors may feel that way but only the hugely successful, as in Lady Gaga, get to define how their music should be understood-whether it fits that description or not. To me its another "discrete avant-garde" in this case pop music which in the end turns out to be simple new music theater. Anyway technical skill is not just the reserve of classical music.

As new music theater I have some reservations about the presentation. The NY rock and roll ensemble and others have covered this sonic territory--but the new wrinkle is the music video. Since this is a new music theater type production the visual is built in--the NYR n' RE were instrumental performers. Yet when they performed they performed as accomplished musicians and performers. This is different and unlike operas of Ben Johnson which feature professionalism.

Here is the thing; as a music vid it's amateurish. Perhaps it's understood this is all ironic subtext, because naturally professional singer/actors could have been used (Perhaps they were I only saw the vid). Or they are creating ironic commentary on music vid acting, which can be wooden.

Since this is a stage show it unfortunately looks like a vanity production with all it implies.

Why do I say that?

It seemed to me that the only way that a mainstream musical (which this is) could be understood as alt.classical is with irony. As irony is not a musical value but a text based value its no wonder that its the new music theater folks and songwriters and multimedia types make up the alt. classical world. Classical music may be privileged but literature and literary theory are privileged even more.

Further there is also seems a need to appear unprecedented. That is that other song based "progressive" popular music or new music theater (or any song that aspires to be more than entertainment) simply never existed. Not to mention literally any roots culture that may have direct influence.

As I have mentioned before the problem with irony is that it can and will pass as the real thing.

I just saw a documentary called the "Yes Men". About folks who set up look-a-like web sites to industry associations and then snag invitations to speak at events and on TV as industry spokes people. They then present ironic "official industry viewpoints". It had the same problem, that is, for all the supposed outrageousness, their presentation mostly passed for the real thing. Besides a few good gags their masquerade was just as dull and indistinguishable from the views they wanted to skewer. Otherwise their media coverage would dry up. Rather than expose hypocrisy they simply lowered the level of discourse. Otherwise the game is up. That was done on purpose.

Back to topic.

What does this have to do with classical music? Why is it important that classical music be invoked???
Especially as this work has much more to do with Broadway, "spring awakening" than classical music.
There are many who see the rise of the many, many, discreet avant-gardes (avant-garde country music, avant-garde MOR etc.) as base-line competence mixed with amateur features. That is an aggressive display of lack of ability in some area by choice or lack of training. There is a difference between those two.

Here the music production is fine--the presentation lacking. Yet that is exactly what we are suppose to admire. We are to admire the combination of bad acting/singing and lyrics with competent production values. Perhaps this was done to save money--yet bands like and need to be the center of attention in their own vids.

Rewarding incompetence has a long tradition, perhaps this is what is meant by referencing the classical music tradition. Yet I was never aware that just by putting a self knowledge spin on incompetence ("you see I know what I'm doing -- its on purpose") made it something else --- avant-garde.

The problem is that irony, as done today, has no commitment.

Nam June Paik said that for him nothing much must happen as mainstream entertainment is all about what happens. This seem to have morphed into something can happen if its badly done or done without commitment.

I just don't feel commitment from these performers.
So sometimes bad acting is just bad acting. That too has a tradtion.

music and sport not by Andrew Porter

2010-07-11T12:47:00.000-05:00

The Howard Cosell of new music seems to have defined the "scene" as if it were professional baseball.

OK hear me out. You see the young talent gets picked up by the major leagues (universities and performing institutions) to have a great career before becoming coaches to the next generation. The problem with this model is that a composer or any artist (except maybe singers and actors) can exist outside of a scene.

Of course these folks would never get to Howard Cosell's attention.

smells like team spirit

2010-07-11T12:09:00.000-05:00

It seems that NMB bloggers are obsessed with their "party lines." Lock step opinions and snobbery etc etc etc. No thinking for themselves. Strange how anecdotal evidence is used to support belief. How criticism, and I mean opinion based criticism, not fact supported opinion rules the day. That politics and log rolling only happen within the other teams. My team right or wrong. Or rather my team, the currently winning team, is always right.

I supposed that blogging by itself is a self centered activity. So it is natural that everyone's personal experience becomes the rule of law.

To me this is worse than the inside bloggers, mostly college teachers, who pretend that its an equal playing field and all the while retaining their prerogatives. Not to mention pushing their own agendas. As politicians they are invested with the title of composer and in that light the rest of us are merely the peanut gallery. No matter how eloquent I might be and no matter how much insight I might provide. No matter how important my composition is. I'm a threat that must be managed. That is why I would rather expose them as hypocrites than advance my own career. A private party is just that.

Blogging was supposed to be a great equalizer but it's not.

NetEnd

2010-04-25T12:28:00.000-05:00

Rather than find that the veracity of the net has improved the veracity of all media has declined.

I think we already feel nostalgia for the good old days of the net. What is coming is the unification of power. TV, cable, phone, media, content, and internet as one. Independents will simply be lost in the volume. Twitter, a chat room that does not erase, has already become a shill for products. Already those who came first, geocities and aol have been erased. Rather than everyone one getting more connected they are now unconnected rather we all have our private worlds.

The worst is the commercial synergy that will overwhelm all.

more unintended consequences

2010-04-16T22:48:00.000-05:00

Just saw a Brecht play-funny everyone rich or poor was a cheat and a liar except for the communist party.
What Marx would have thought about the soviet union perhaps would be similar to what Adam Smith would think about today's version of free markets. Anyway this story has been told many times Major Barbara etc.

Anyway the fall of the soviet union allowed American capitalism to drop any facade of compassion for their employees. Our captains of industry revealed themselves as buccaneers and at best privateers. They wreck our country and enrich themselves. They falsify their beginnings become philanthropists. And G-D help us they are taking over education.

First the public schools are starved for funding. What does no more taxes really mean -- no services. The union busting cavalry do arrive so college and high school drop outs can call the shots for public education. By the way what innovation did Microsoft create to make so much money?--vaporware. Microsoft was never about creating product it was about marketing product.

I guess it is all about me.

2010-04-03T13:43:00.001-05:00

some notes on moderism

2010-04-03T12:13:00.000-05:00

Just listened to some Leo Orenstein. Violin Sonata op. 31, Loved it and noticed some similarities with my own work not mention background (Russian Jewish).   (rapid changes of tempo etc.)

One thing I also noticed was His similarities with George Antheil -short careers as major concert pianists, short vogue as major composers, wide stylistic and harmonic difference explored in their work - though perhaps more integration in Orenstein's work.

Both backed off their most extreme works yet there seemed no particular reason to do so.   Yet there are a number of anecdotal statements (by many artists) about the stress and metal force that it took to compose and perform those extreme works at that time that might offer us some clues.

Both did not study composition very long? Both in different ways past from our view.

Anyway...

I was looking at the tone cluster compositions Wild Men's Dance. I found the combination of indistinct pitch and mainstream rhythms -2 bar phrase repetition - unconvincing. Same as I find modern rhyming verse. Indistinct pitch just makes the simple rhythms more prominent in a way that neutralizes the pitch effect. I find this "neutralization" a lot in many so called "experimental" works. I used to think that this was just a dislike of Schoenberg and/or a need to find some other way to accomplish the same thing. On the other hand the first person to use a technique does not always create the most convincing compositions. Anyway the use here does delineate the connection of more Stravinsky less of Scriabin.
If this is the beginning of gesture composition experimentation is a discrete occurrence.

Yet the "pianist" remains. Perhaps the shadow of Rachmaninoff and virtuosity was too strong. For example in op. 31the piano part has considerably more difficulty than the violin part (like the Mendelssohn cello sonata). Yet and unlike the Mendelssohn the piano part does not seem to hold its own. It seems obvious that a compositional lack of reflection leads to works that seem more of an improvisation.

Clusters? Why does this only happen in the piano parts? Could he have adapted it to the "single note" instruments?

NB I wonder if politics had a hand, as I remember "futurists" became associated (as did Esza Pound supporter of Mr. Antheil) with fashism. A number of texts point out that Mr. Pound was tone deaf.

Someone agrees with me?

2010-03-27T17:42:00.000-05:00

I was just reading the latest post from the Howard Cosell of Music.

At the MET the money is good but the art is lagging because looks trump sound. My, my I predicted that years ago. As to whether a hot young i.e. inexperienced composer will come to the rescue seems unlikely. Though in art anything is possible. Yet, in the arts the mainstream has never lead. Why all of a sudden has this changed? Because a composer of the moment has their momentary success? Because the MET chose to commission a composer of the moment?

As to the alternative audiences created for alternative opera there will never be interpenetration or cross over. Yoga enthusiasts and massage therapists will like only what they like.

This is not audience building.

The real problem for the MET is that the lack of competition in the US creates too much focus on what they do.
We see them as speaking for a nation when they don't.

A question of relevance: Education an old post updated and reprinted

2010-03-04T13:07:00.001-06:00

A question of relevance:

I remember a panel discussion reprinted in the AMC newsletter also on the net..

Where a composer and 2 leading music educators decried the persistence of traditional classical music --to paraphrase--

this was a retrograde force on education as it had no relevance to today's children -

Public school children that is.

One always forgets that when anyone mentions any education reform they mean public education reform.

I was struck with how unanimous was there agreement on this subject. To say that times have changed is perhaps the point its self. In the 1950-1960 even 17 magazine covered classical music as well as popular music – no longer. But then again is it because mass market or nich market media no longer cover classical music does that make it irrelevant? Skills based learning irrelevant? Huh?

Consider if public school children, rather lets say poor children, have any choice in the matter? Do they have a choice? Many times not.

This reveals the disconnect between our so called leaders and the folks who actually have to implement a policy. A policy that they, I mean we, are actually unaware of. That is; the folks at the top would sell us out to promote pop music. Why? Merely because its ubiquitous. Because it has a beat you can dance to?

One can't help but wonder what the motivation is here.
Is it Funding?

Is there not money to be made in these choices or lack thereof? The music industry does many wonderful things, yet not enough, but it has a huge stake in popular music and every year music seems to get cheaper to produce as performing skills are emphasized less and less and technology used more and more thus increasing profits. With the Anteries machine it is no longer necessary to sing in tune to sing on a hit record.

What I mean is this; Technology can produce many wonderful things but its main focus with the top 40 has always been to make music cheaper and more profitable.

The advent of music video made an advertisement the object itself.

Why has technological advances replaced artistic achieve in the public mind as the greater good?

Artistic achievement is rare, sporadic, and not always apparent or easy to understand, it doesn't get much press or make a lot of money either. Higher thinking skills are required to understand it. (Hmmm maybe Public School students need some of those).

Of course elementary band has some sonic issues that the same kids wired to a laptop with headphones don't have.

Technological advances are a constant, and as products are easy to understand and not only do they get constant press they are the signal and the “bus.” That is they are the medium (Flat screen HD TV) and the message as well (for our next segment--new laptops!!)- they are ubiquitous and almost inescapable. It also drives our economy even thought not many of these products are made in America anymore.

Every new upgrade means more expense but my conclusion is this; new technologies makes music cheaper and easier to produce thus increases profits. To achieve that end it has also reduced the value and meaning of composition. Today music compositions are just another computer file. They all look alike.

Recent trends in the arts are also against "artistic" achievement. The recent trend in the arts world is that “high art” is just “another” of many many styles. This fits in well with the music industry that for years has marketed popular music as “outsider art.” “If Mozart were alive today....”

If we consider the public mind in American terms as Barnum did, we love winners. So, its obvious that technology wins and artistic achievement loses.

Why then does it surprise anyone that those in the know (the NYT?) would drop the composers who do not hitch their wagon to the current winning team?

Musical Politics

2010-02-19T22:54:00.000-06:00

One problem we composers have today is the constant reminder that we must chose a side. A team. Nothing inhibits learning and free inquiry more than the realization that many schools of thought, and their Journals, are discreet insular worlds that do not interact with each other except to attack.

One thing I try to do with my lessons is to show just how much interconnection there is between different styles. There is much common ground between styles and they do share many similar techniques; Motion music and Carter for example.

The style police would have you think differently. Not just because they don't attend each others concerts. There is an unfortunate interest in having power and this "gamesmanship" is a symptom.

There are musical teams. They compete.

The advantages of joining a team aside, well your career may depend on it, you must in the end simply tote a party line. That may be a connection to power but it is not and it will never be free thinking.

Musical Politics?

Look around, absorb. Keep an open mind.

No Sonic prejudice.

Opera Bob Selections

2010-02-19T22:48:00.001-06:00

Run for your life

2010-02-01T18:17:00.002-06:00

I was never one to sell a bill of goods. Who would believe me anyway?
Recently there has been some ground swell to make the experimental "gesture" composers minimalists.

Say What?

Naturally one hopes this isn't just an attempt to create relevance (good for teaching to the unfamiliar), or to grab on to the coattails of those very very successful composers. By the way those composers have done an end run around a whole generation of other composers--just as the commercial electronic composers have done to the academic electronic profession.

For many and for a long time "serious" music for all the arts excluding music was exclusively John Cage and followers (these I call gesture composers), or perhaps Jazz, and then some kinds of really hip rock music (the folks who hanged with the art crowd)1. This has changed with John Cage dead this leaves a vacuum needing to be filled. Now it's the motion composer's show.

To state the obvious: If the gesture composers were in operation long before the motion music people why privilege the term minimalist?   Especially since the gesture composers created these techniques.

Since the unexperimental "classical music" world has seemingly rejected the motion composers (actually they have not, especially if you count commissions and performances, and if so its just a few composers)so this could be a simple case of the enemy of my enemy is my friend. the enemy of my enemy is my friend - the enemy being trained composers who compose dissonant music. Teams join up.

Politics aside just because something fulfills the same function doesn't mean that its the same thing. Better or worse. Supplanting Cage is perhaps so politically uncongenial that it is best just to say you didn't do it, or it didn't happen. John Cage is so much more "relevant" than Carl Orff (a composer who is much closer in sound and success to the motion composers [for a more detailed explanation of possible origins see my style-a-matic-2000 in my composition lessons]).

http://philfried.com/compositionlessons/

Then again we are not discussing the music at all but musical politics. May be it just feels good to say these things even though John Cage did not like the motion composers or Jazz.

So let the revisionism begin.

In C by Terry Riley is strongly accented and has improvisation and no instrumentation other than the pulse. The motion composers have no connection to this as they are strictly notated and orchestrated. Harmonically too their are differences as in major and a wall of sound for In C and minor and appegiated clarity for the motions.
Yes they both have repetition, but if that is your proof which composer doesn't?

Most important In C is a happening for the performers. Its fun. On the other hand motion music is not only hard work and difficult to play, but besides evoking a cool seriousness, exists to showcase something else other than the music. This could be a concept, or a visual image, or a film or the composer themselves.

Well don't take it from me.

1. Naturally these generalizations exclude all those with open and flexible minds. The classical music world that I know includes jazz and besides that is in constant flux. Certainly not a monolith..

Whats with the NY Times and new music?

2010-01-14T10:01:00.000-06:00

I suppose this harks back to the old Newsweek and Time magazines coverage from the 1960's and 1970's when the "Once Group" and the MN Opera" were used to provide the what is the latest strange thing the arts up to these days?

Any publicity is good publicity. Right?

On the other hand one was under the impression that the folks who read those reviews and puff pieces were not the folks who attended those performances.

In every case the subject of these NYT profiles are folks who present their ideas through music-not musical ideas.

Simply put; the NYT presents composers for whom the music does not come first. Text based work is easier to explain in text of course.

During hard times its nice to know that stage machinery and set dressing can now be run by software alone.

American ingenuity-I take off my hat.

Avatar and the nature of wish fulfillment

2010-01-03T11:22:00.000-06:00

I suppose I get tired of the right wing story line presented as a left wing story line, ie; private property is inviolate, don't mess with the Lord. The story was as badly written as expected and its hard to forget that the film costs about $50,000 dollars a second. One would have liked the amazing visuals in service of a better cause.

Anyway it seems that Avatar is a great metaphor for the superiority of the digital life over real life. Everything is simpler and more beautiful and makes more sense. Things like eating or bathing just get in the way. Evidently no one lies or cheats or gets sick in the digital world--really? Punkbuster anyone?

This film is not pro science but pro technology--it gives permission to use your cell phone, text, use apps, by all means disappear from our drab and painful world...

One thing. Being present is one of the optimal points of existence.
The wish being fulfilled here is that its ok not to be.

The Jokes on me

2009-12-27T14:40:00.000-06:00

Well Rufus seems to have hit the mother load. If only ambition and flamboyance were enough. Fortunately mainstream opera singers, including Rene Fleming, seem to hate contemporary music and feel no responsibility whatsoever to it. Rather there is a desperate attempt to make this "popular work" work with a team of professionals.

A digression.

This is perhaps the biggest open secret of the cross over newpopclassical music. These works would not exist without the helping hands of paid professionals. Oddly, it also seem that the composer is not always in charge or the guiding force behind these adaptions. The gate keepers are. Sometime they are even unaware of the changes made to get the work on the boards.

Back to topic.

Singers with extraordinary tessituras are hired. not because their sound reveals their character, but because of a lack of understanding of their instrument. The only human thing is his partial willingness to let his team create for him.
,
Partial? My experience with pop music "leaders," especially successful ones, is that they are spoiled and arbitrary. There is never a musical reason for a decision. Only an expression of personal desire - of power.
This is fine for a personal style but not for work with other music professionals. You see the professionals share a common language that pop stars don't.

We are told this opera is popular because it is popular and in a popular style. Yet it pushes the envelope as well. This goes back to MN's own Philip Brunelle claiming that it took courage to perform crowd pleasing Paul McCartney.

Opera does not just consist of the forgettable new work performed at the big houses and mainstream institutions.

On the positive side Rufus is an opera queen. Yet the love of singers, arias, and their high notes in the abstract does not provide cover for a lack of dramatic, vocal, and compositional skills. I'm afraid the low standard of vocal writing by the recent crop of successful opera composers continues here and is perhaps surpassed. On the other hand for an opera packaged for this market check out the last emperor.

I've already spent time discussing Mr.Wainright's obvious advantages as a "famous" song writer. Otherwise why would we be here?

To quote Rufus "all the cool people in LA hang together."

I guess that's what opera needs.

another mis-step, but not mine

2009-12-22T12:27:00.000-06:00

It was many years ago that I interviewed, auditioned really, to be a teacher/conductor at the Boys Choir of Harlem School. It was just starting. I liked working with kids and I still do. My disappointment at my non appointment seems more resonant now as they refused to give me a rejection letter.

That letterhead is no more.

It is sad to see this institution end and I'd like to think that I could have make a difference.

I do. Instead I just do it in Saint Paul.

What does 5 by 5 mean?

2009-12-17T09:56:00.001-06:00

What does 5 by 5 mean?

Five schools five days. No splitting programs to accommodate “no pull out” times. Schedules are one full day in each school. Well as my editorial about NCLB states that testing puts the arts at risk. We now see the details of this in action. Especially true as principals have the right to use their budgets to buy extra teaching days for us from the district.

Obviously these schools chose not to.

Anyway here is a list.

1)We were told we could pull kids for lessons all day long—nope we can't.
2)We were told we would have good, secure, teaching spaces – nope we don't
3)We were told we would be in charge of our daily schedule-well not always.
4)We were not told that we would have to oversee the major downsizing of programs in unfamiliar schools, many from 4 days to 1 day ( a 75% cut). We were not told how to do this.
5)We were not told that some principals still expected the same results anyway with less time.
6)I was told by several principals that they wanted me to teach on Friday because Friday is the teaching day most missed from holidays and district activities.
7)We have no time for communication.
8)We are isolated.
9)When it comes to issues about room sharing we enter the “twilight zone.” We are the minority sharers, 1 day, and we lack political importance.
10)Our five schools were not assigned for any particular reason. They are not close geographically, do not share the same start times.
11)One of our main functions, to unite a school and to create focus, is denied.

Struggles real and imaginary

2009-12-08T04:12:00.000-06:00

For some time now I have styled or placed myself as an outsider. If you look closely at the above link you will see that my activities alone have not been the gratuity of position or powerful friends. Evidently having powerful friends is in itself an artistic activity. Well, one can't have an artistic career without patrons can they? For most thats University life. Or whatever team they belong to.

So...

Are my accomplishments somehow better, somehow more important?

One question I ask myself is how am I where I am?

I know this; when I went to school I had only artistic ambition. Ambition for my music-not for myself. Silly me. The revealing of my leaning disability at 29, I was diagnosed at 8 and untreated, changed a lot of things for me, but not enough. Changing my way of coping with LD is an still an ongoing process.

In school I had questions about the rightness of certain kinds of awards and activities. I drew lines in the sand about what I was will to do for my career not realizing that those decisions reflected on my institution. Nor did I think they would react. Obviously there were others willing to take my place in a second who had no such questions. So much for their interest in me. Then again whether I could survive in this kind of world with my attitude is not clear. On the other hand I just might have. I survived this.

Does this mean that my outsiderness is simply mismanagement? Or a ruse to empower myself?

Well I started my professional career with a satire on composers; my song cycle "Meditations and Satires." You get the picture. I could go into detail here about the Chicago and NY performances. Not now. At its later premiere at Tanglewood, as part of the choral festival, (not the new music week) was a huge success. In fact that singer wanted to perform M&S again at the Manhatten School of Music as part of her graduate recital but was refused because I was not faculty.

It would seem that my continued good artistic fortune would rule out that this is just plain sour grapes, though as I have pointed out before that many of the most successful composers have a chip on their shoulders. Especially now when folks want composers to pretend, or at least project being warm hearted.

No. All points lead here.

So I would say I am an outsider because of the failure of institutions to make use of me.

The Crawling Eye

2009-11-29T22:31:00.000-06:00

Beside the goofy monsters, sure they are slow real slow. Very very slow. What made this movie so vivid in my memory was how effective the music was. I didn't remember that till I rented it again recently.

The music was fantastic just what was needed. Not too much or too little.

Why can't today's movie music be as effective?

Sigh.

anyway the composer

Stanley Black, composer http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005965/bio

Why ask why?

2009-11-25T17:16:00.000-06:00

Enough of insiders pretending to be outsiders.

"There’s no question that in music, like politics, the bigger the audience gets the more the “message” has to be watered down. "

In this case the above watered down, rather third hand, message is published for that tiny audience that is the New York Times.

No Irony here. Nope. To be plain its hard to pretend to be the voice in the wilderness when that voice get constant major media play.

The really sad truth is that this "end of music" doesn't seem to include Mr. Branca himself.

Then again perhaps he never considered the connection.

PS

Why is it when Cage hated his music, minimalism too for that matter, do folks (including Mr. Branca), keep trying to create tautologies that connect them?

Casanovas Home coming

2009-11-19T23:48:00.000-06:00

Argento to me has always been a text based composer. Here too when a point has to be made the music drops out the words have their sway. In fact the text is featured over everything musical, except for the occasional patter where the last syllable of a two syllable word is accented when perhaps it shouldn't be. Its a style.

I liked this work yet it did not draw me in because every time I thought the music might take me somewhere Argento's musical austerity dropped me like a hot potato. Again and again there were sections of solo vocal, or accompanied by a drone, that stop the drama in its tracks. These sections, though short are just too similar and repetitive. If this is to reinvent the recitative, why not also bring back melody? The vocal writing is constant hetherophonic vocal obbligato to the orchestral melody. Even in the finale the appogituras are not taken up by the singers who end up never singing anything memorable.

The response to modernism here is to break up the continuity of the tonal form. The problem with interrupting continuity is that all musical events then become only local. There is no long range musical form no arrival no departure simply events--oddly what many tonalists accuse 12-toners and John Cage. The music is interrupted but the text is not. This too places more emphasis on the text as a formal element. This work seems more akin to melodrama than to operetta.

I liked act 1 best event though the quotations from Mahler seems a little much.

His dramatic experience shows of course. The harmony was persuasive. The scenario was the best part. Plenty of variety. Yet, the variety of its cast of character seemed so much that in the end there was no variety at all. The famous opera in an opera scene, though effective, caused other problems for me-either it came to soon (as it might have worked better as the finale [the device, not the music]) or it was just plain virtuosity. This section also displayed the penchant for obbligato hetherophonic vocal parts that sit on the harmony and don't seem to move it forward again. It simply became one of many clever devices.

After Dr. Atomic I'll take clever anytime.

The composer who would not come in from the cold.. yet

2009-11-13T09:08:00.000-06:00

Joanne Hubbard Cossa, Chief Executive Officer of NMB invites me to return to the fold and become a member again. My guess was that this letter was a form letter with some addenda notes provided. After years of membership and nothing to show for it, this is my response.

I was wrong I rejoined--I won't hide my words because I felt them at the time and I don't care for censorship.

-------

Dear Ms. Cossa:

Thank you for your offer, I think if you check your records you will see that I was a member for many years. I applied for the cap grants for years as well, they had a different name then.

So It's like this;

Two years of those years, the years the Minnesota orchestra chose to play my work I applied for the cap [music copy] grants--what grant application could have been stronger than mine? I was denied. Well at that point I realized that our association was a two way street and I no longer wanted the AMC to claim any responsibility for my success. That's how it was.
On the other hand by blogging I help your site create some buzz.

I'm afraid that if I rejoined now and awards came my way folks would think it a quid pro quo.

But your certainly free to try to convince me. What do you say?

Phil Fried

Well I said it and now..... I'm a member again.

another addenda

2009-10-01T16:29:00.000-05:00

By ANTHONY TOMMASINI

Published: September 30, 2009

"...ALTHOUGH opera might be healthier if die-hard fans were as intensely curious about new works as theatergoers are..."

That's the problem! Where are the new works??? How do you know that the MET audience isn't as intensely curious about new works as theatergoers are? The MET is not the only game in town or the world for that matter for new opera. Mess'in with the classics is risk free work.

Unfortunately directors with only this kind of experience come up short again and again when they try their hand at creating original work.

Boo Who? Another night at the opera.

2009-09-24T10:10:00.000-05:00

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/g/peter_gelb/index.html?inline=nyt-per

According to the NYT no one dares to criticize the new management at the Met.
Evidently the moniker of “no one” fits me like a glove. Again. Well as I have pointed out on NMB and other places as a composer I'm the least likely to put up a fuss and also the easiest to ignore.

Well it’s like this. I love the MET simulcasts, yet I wonder why the staging seems created to enhance the experience for the cameras and not the live MET audience.

It seems that there is a problem with the MET audience. Evidently their loyalty might be a problem for moving the MET into the future. They are accused of wanting only the traditional in opera. That is a focus on music, voice and charicter. In my own experience at the MET there were several different audiences depending on the music played. Even the Tannhauser audience was different from Parsifal’s. I just wonder what audience would find a Van Gogh in a Peter Max frame interesting? Perhaps a trendy one, but to tie one’s self to trends means you’re a follower and not a leader, and trends do change. One other new trend at the MET must be mentioned. Musical elements, excellent as they are, are of secondary importance to the visual elements and merely ubiquitous. Yet why is this trend other than its newness progressive? Why is a focus on music, voice and charicter regressive? [ to find that out read here] http://philipfried.blogspot.com/2009/08/rethink.html

This does show one thing:

The prestige of a new production has eclipsed the prestige of a new opera.

One trend that the MET follows is the star system. A new trend is the tendency to put a singers looks ahead of there sound. All things being equal the most attractive wins the role.

Unlike Europe where opera is ubiquitous, in America there isn’t a lot. That means that European directors can go hog wild reinterpreting the classics because audiences can find a more tradition production pretty much all the time. This may not be true in all places but Europe also has a tradition of accepting bizarre theater.

About this particular production of Tosca which adds a lot of sex not mentioned in the libretto:

I am reminded of that scene in Mad Men where Don says “People who think that sex sells are the same people who think that this job can be done by monkeys.”

My comment is always this; why not commission a new Tosca opera with this point of view? Certainly a new Mannon which actually told the original story seems a no-brainer since that would do the job nicely.

Sigh.

An Artistic paradigm

2009-09-20T19:39:00.000-05:00

Janet asked me "why is it so hard for talented artistically sensitive musicians to get ahead?"

Answer: For them rejection hurts too much.

The paradigm is this:

The more intelligent and self aware you are, and the more ownership you have of your abilities, the harder it is to accept the many vagaries and stupidities of our music profession.

Outcome: Rejection is hard.

Contra wise: The more you care about personal ambition, and the less you will care about your music, the more you will be able to accept the many vagaries and stupidities of our music profession. Its a game to be played to win.

Outcome: Rejection is easy.

Of course luck also enters into these equations.

Most of us have too slog however.

reply to ANTHONY TOMMASINI

2009-08-24T21:56:00.000-05:00

To the Editor:

As Mr. Tommasini points out John Adams;
" has rightly been hailed as giving the genre an innovative jolt."
Then again what is the nature of "innovation" if it stifles artistic debate as well as excuse many a dramatic fault?
Texts that make no sense? Ungrateful to sing and badly composed for the voice? Orchestration covering the voice so you need amplification? Bad scansion? No dramatic pacing? Innovation at work.
On the other hand why would a successful composer want to risk a winning formula?

The fault, if any, is not just Mr. Adams but true of almost all of American Opera--there is not enough produced, not enough in the repertory, and not enough performances. So the same compositional mistakes are made again and again.

You just can't expect John Adams to be Alban Berg.

Phil Fried

a rethink

2009-08-04T05:14:00.000-05:00

You know there is nothing wrong with Opera Companies looking for the next Franz von Suppe rather than the next Beethoven. Yet the theatrical and musical skills necessary to create a successful popular work do require some knowledge of what opera is and was. Oh and the skills too.

With theatrical skills unlearned composers make the same mistakes again and again. This is the legacy of American opera. True, composers with the ambition to create opera have done no better than the pop stars. Ambition, opportunity, and ability seldom seem to coalesce into results. For me this is simple.

This is because some folks have a personal ambition to compose an opera not a musical one.

Of course pandering is cheaper than education.

These day's the music seems to be just an after thought in opera. The emphasis on the visual and political statement over the music itself is of course just a trend. But why? I remember reading how an art gallery owner threw out a rich philistine who wanted a painting that matched his drapes (or was it something that fit his wall?) and how another gallery snapped him up and gave him what he wanted and also what the gallery wanted to sell. Since this person was a blank slate they educated him to want what they were selling. Opera these days is no different. I'm afraid that the American view, unlike Europe and Asia, still holds that opera just can't be for everyone. So they focus on their target market, that is the art crowd, the folks who might contribute money. For them, since it is a problem, they simply define the importance of music in opera out of existence.

Arguably the results are, perhaps, no worse than in any other decade.
Everyone's happy especially if the drapes match.

Composing for Opera Bob

2009-08-04T05:12:00.000-05:00

It started when Janet asked me to compose some humorous arias and ensembles for the opera bob performances. Comedy interests me and there is not a lot of comedy in the operatic repertoire at least not a lot of roll in the aisle kind of humor. This kind of thing, composing in another composers style and humorously, has been done before; by Anna Russell and of course PDQ Bach.

So for me I had to do something different, at least for myself.

My point was to be as authentic as possible and create the most beautiful unadorned melodies I could on which the comedy could hang. Oh yes I've already composed 3 operas and spent years studying the repertoire, going to the Met weekly for 3 -4 years and my misspent youth studying Drama at the Neighborhood Playhouse. I had just finished a serious opera The Snows of Kilimanjaro, based on the Hemingway short story after 10 years so I was in the mood for funny. Oh, my Father was a opera singer who sang on Broadway in the original Carousel and Brigadoon. I loved listening to him sing. Well I married a singer.

Theatrical music seems to be in my blood.

Most important to me is to set the words so they can be understood. The scansion exact, the syllables in the just right place. Then the styles had to be realized, and one thing I learned is that tonality needs no artifice and no decoration to make its point.

Only 2 of my 6 works made it to the final show and some cuts were needed. It is satisfying to be in the game. So we add measures here and cut there. That life in the theater. My 2 arias are Character pieces. This fits in with the Opera Bob sensibility I think. The Rossini aria was inspired by the MN Opera's La donna del lago. It was my first musical joke but shortened by Will to give you the good parts! The Puccini, well, was just because.

Of course it was a pleasure to compose for such wonderful and contrasting voices. Opera Bob's artists have a special quality.

That is: they create roles not just inhabit them.

For some of you who know my other work you might be surprised that I did this. Yet for me art must be composer directed.

Then the music will always ring true.

Glamor Composers and their Opera

2009-07-12T16:03:00.000-05:00

Fragment of a comment from "Pelleas", chez Parterre, regarding Rufus Wainwright's "bringing opera to people who normally wouldn’t consider listening to it,"

...except that I don’t believe his audience is going to listen to any opera other than his. He’s made no secret of his operaphilia over the years, and it’s made no difference so far, in much the way that his Judy concert didn’t really make Garland fans out of people who weren’t in the first place.

There's something not just correct but, I think, significant in this sentiment, and as soon as I work out what it is, you'll know. This is me thinking out loud.

Stillmeter

It is true that Josh Grobin help raise money from Congress for the NEA. For some he is an opera singer, but not for everyone. The problem with the Wainwright and others like him is that he represents a triumph of personality over product, all sizzle and no steak (sorry for this analogy my vegetarian friends).

He is not the first or the last of the glamorous being commissioned to compose opera. The bigger question is why are trained composers being ignored? The thing that may be bothering you is this; Mr. Wainwright seems so very, very, calculated. His Judy concert is a case in point. He provided a community with an "event" that was not about Judy at all, but about himself. Unlike Judy, Mr. Wainwright's skills as a singer are perhaps his weakest especially if you like understanding the words.

How can a song writer who writes songs in English compose an opera in French when his stated purpose is to popularize? Perhaps he thinks only the French speaking world will buy in? The French do love their pop music don't you know. [it seems that the language was a non issue with the MET just an excuse it seems from some of the other posts]

Anyway this is a miscalculation as removing the text from understanding puts all the pressure on the music and the composition and I'm afraid you need a composer for that.

Phil Fried

by the way and for the record--you can't turn down a Met Commission and then have it immediately pick up by other companies and also claim to be an "outsider."

a further note: It seems odd as a dramatic deux machina to present us with a charicter who refuses to sing who then sings throughout the entire opera. Also the final "song" is a direct steal of Bach by way of Gounod. Compositionaly there is a difference between a song and a dramatic scene with music. For Gershwin take a look at "Of thee I sing" and notice the how some songs are intervoven with action and used to enhase the stage drama.

Ya Gotta be somebody

2009-07-09T14:37:00.000-05:00

I just read a news letter for a musical organization and I have to say it was depressing. You see it was not much about the art as it was about the somebodies and their chosen graduate students. This ties in to my post about folks who ice skate on top of a rink made by others and pretend they built it. Well you see them and not the rink. Easy confusion as most of us take the rink, or the musical world, for granted.

In essence its a private party. A university private party at that. You may be let in to gawk but the members only VIP room is ever present and you don't get in.

On the other hand they also have a problem with relevance. Since they are strictly university based they seek legitimation through interaction and the blessing of the founders, musicians of color, who are not connected with their organization or their university "teams." Interaction is one thing blessing another.

I hope the founders refuse their blessing. At least until its more than a one way street.

I am aware of quite a few composers who think because of "personal" empowerment that they are leaders in their field. A fact completely unknown to the actual leaders in those fields. Their attempts to assert themselves looks ridicules.

Yet when musical decisions are not made by musical judgments look out.

Where are Phil's Composition Lessons?

2009-07-01T21:02:00.000-05:00

Ok Folks I moodled it. This is a perfect format--Have fun!!

Log in as a guest.

http://philfried.com/compositionlessons/

Am I Crabby or What?

2009-06-21T18:27:00.000-05:00

Twenty years ago (or so) I was reading a publication of the Business School at the University of Chicago. It seems that some folks, I think it was the Harvard B School, held a competition among student teams whose goal was to create and sell a similar product.

Result: The winning team not only worked to move their own products, but also undermined their competition by methods that in the real world would border on or be illegal. The losers complained and wanted the winners disqualified--but the professor in charge said no -- this is the way the world works, get used to it.

What does this have to do with music composition or the arts?

It occurs to me that the profession of artist is not just about advocating one's career but also about "blocking" others, keeping the competition down. Gamesmanship is a tool to keep the competition in check. On the other hand, this also creates opportunities for those artists attuned to the "blocking" activities of gatekeepers.

In this case, style, uptown or downtown is not an issue nor has it ever been -- being an insider is.

That is; the important thing is to gain power within your circle. Power is the point.

So every time you hear about how powerless famous connected folks are -- run.

Kinds of active political plays:

International:

Countries have an interest supporting immigrant artists who create art critical of their former countries.
Some pretend their country has a single artistic voice.
Some feel only a certain type of music represents their country.
Some countries have official composers.

National:

Some states are more important than others.
Some states have more influence than you think. Like Texas .

Wannabes

Wealthy hangers on anyone?

The below are well known so no explanation needed:

Religious
Institutional
Team
Old School Tie
Family
Plain old power games
Hip cool--however you say it--in tune with the "young folk"
Jealousy
Hate
Love too.
The old country
Quid pro quo

Artistic Leadership - when no one cares

2009-06-13T10:50:00.000-05:00

For a long time I assumed that our artistic leaders in music worked towards a goal creating policy. That is projecting their view of musical art like it or not. Here is the thing, lately I have come to suspect that their goal is not to project the art at all but to maintain their positions of leadership.

In that case protecting a musical style is not an issue at all. Rather the point is to advance insiders who would have advanced anyway without their help. In this way they can associated themselves with success in the industry, rather than take risks and perhaps marginalize themselves. Since no one cares about the results, outside of professional, interested, circles it all boils down to a matter of perception.

Most important: it makes it look as if they have an influence they don't have. They can pretend to be democratic, and interested in the "best" rather than just the old school tie. I for one, unlike the NYT, don't see anything out of the ordinary when academics from Princeton pay homage to academics from Yale.

Rather than build the rink-they merely skate on top of it.
Staying at the top one must make some strange bedfellows.
How does promoting insiders constitute anything other than projecting the status quo?

Composers who hate music

2009-03-29T22:00:00.000-05:00

This seems a strange proposition doesn't it?

How can a composer hate music?

I have already written about folks including musicians and including composers who harbor sonic prejudices. These prejudices are of no concern to the artistic world unless the composers are actively advancing them. That is they chose to enforce their prejudices with acts of commission and omission, rumor and ridicule. Especially those who pretend they don't.

Music is a big umbrella and I submit that to hate part of it is to hate it all.

These mechanizations are of course doomed to fail. Though they can succeed in the short run music always finds its own equilibrium.

Sonic Embarrassment?

Then there are those composers who are embarrassed by the musical content of their works. How? Well their works may include music or sound but they will feature anything but the music. That is; the editorial, text, dance,visual, light, motion, film, wall of sound, the performers, cult of the personality, or incomprehensibility etc.

Since the "I'll commission anything but Schoenberg rule" still applies to gate keepers ignorance is a boon.

Of course not all folks who use the above feel that way. This is not about them its about those composers, or creators, and can't help repeating how little they know about or care about music. Up for scorn? This includes; trained musicians and singers, acoustic instruments, theory or technique, Schoenberg--who taught John Cage-- etc.

One might ask why it is always the rich and privileged that claim that classical music isn't street enough? Still it seems that they desperately need to be included in classical music (actual to replace it) and their hate seen as something else other than naked self promotion. That's the musical trend of the day don't ya know?

Hate is a form of ignorance.

Phil Fried, no sonic prejudice

Phil's manifesto

2009-03-25T18:57:00.000-05:00

With all the scientific literature supporting the arts as part of
American education why do administrators continue to, or try to, cut
elementary music programs?

1. Short term gains and no oversight

Principal’s jobs are on the line. Though NCLB fully supports the
arts as part of a long term education, Principals are being held accountable for
test scores now. They are not held accountable for canceling music
programs. The easy choice is to “up” the academics and throw out the
arts.

2. The belief that the arts, or some of the arts, don’t require specialists. The arts
can be fully addressed by the classroom teachers with no reduction of
quality.

Though the State has Arts standards it does not specify who assesses
them. Nor is their any penalty if they are not meet.

This is wrong. We know better.

3. Space

Older dedicated music rooms can be large and flexible as well as sound
proof. This makes them extremely desirable teaching spaces and many
of these music spaces have been re assigned to other uses. This is
while instrumental music and some vocal programs with hundreds of
students are taught in hallways, closets, cafeterias, and small
offices The lack of acceptable music teaching space leads to several
other problems including; conflicts with classroom teachers as we
create too much sound for them to teach. see below

4. Sound

Music is sound. Elementary music by its very nature is repetitive
and, well, elementary. Folks have strong opinions about their musical
likes and dislikes. Teaching the same math problems every year is
quiet work, no one complains yet teaching the same song every year
can be a problem --for the math teacher. Working on a single song to
perfection can have the same result. Some folks just can’t take it.

5.Dissonance

Even with the most organized and regimented music teacher there will
always be some disorder just as there is in all art. Especially true
as students work towards mastery.

6.Focus/personal

A Strong instrumental/vocal program can create its own focus, and gain
attention for itself. It can also be independent of other school activities.

For example:

It would seem that a math teacher works "for" and supports the classroom teachers in their quest for higher test scores while classroom music requires the classroom teacher to give up some teaching time for performances. That is the classroom teachers must work with and support the music teachers.

Music resists micro managing from administration.

7. The Hard Facts:

Because No Child Left Behind has no penalties for schools that drop arts programs they have become expendable. On the other hand there are severe penalties for principals and school districts if they don't make their AYP now.

This means that arts teachers (Phi Ed too) can't directly help a principal keep their jobs no matter how good we are.

Solution:

Put in place language in NCLB that says school districts must support the arts. This must be backed by either by funding, penalties, or both. Problem solved.

talk talk talk

2009-02-26T12:21:00.000-06:00

Of Art and Art Music.

Lets face it, it seems some folks are bent on composers yakking about their work. What composers say about their music covers many categories:

It’s good.
It’s bad.
It's indifferent.
It’s great.
It should be great, but…,
Schoenberg got it wrong.
Really, I’m not doing exactly what my teachers taught me to do.
No, I am not part of club or team where the audience is made up of captive, self interested people, who think or want to be just like me.
Or perhaps be our new team leader.
I’m a commercial composer and I am only interested in what the gatekeepers will pay for.
I’m an artist and I choose my projects for personal reasons only.
Brittany Spears got it right.
I'm more successful than you will ever be.
Love me love my gamesmanship.
We can pretend that there is no distance between us.
The music does not come first.

No one says,

“I want to hobnob with the rich and famous.”
“I want to be in with the in crowd.”
"I’m an insider your not.”
What I say is a fabrication.

Anyway, it occurred to me that some explanations of work had no relation to the music. Are we so distanced from the actual effect of our music on other ears that we believe everyone naturally gets it? Are people suppose to get it just because we say so, or because its our party line? This reminds me of the curators at art galleries and museums, because composers seek to place their music into an editorial context rather than explain the music. Just because a composer believes their work to reference some other larger world, i.e. popular music genres, those folks have no idea who the composer is, and most of the time the composer has no experience in their world. Even if they did have experience what would that mean? Composers assume that everyone understands their private language.

Then how does an artist, even a commercial one, define their world?

1. The world of pop music, Broadway, television, and movies?
2. The classical music world of institutional opera, symphony, chamber music, and performance spaces?
3. The art world?
4. The crossover industry of unique performance spaces.
5. National and political world?
6. The University world?
7. The world itself?
8. Nationalism?
9. Style team?
10. Any subset of the above?
11. All of the above, etc.

Historically, we see that artists' explanations must be taken with a grain of salt. One can get it right for all the wrong reasons, or get it wrong for all the right ones. The Composer can have insight into their own works, but not their works context and how others might experience it. This is especially true if one style team presents their music to outsiders, those who don't know the tropes even if they know the ropes. It is also possible that some composer's musical insight extends to everyone but themselves. Looking in the mirror is harder then it looks.

Part of the problem this is that more people read text than read music, so the composer feels compelled to convince the listener of their approach through language, not just through the music. Academic training is geared towards the jargon rich language of the dissertation, which even within closely aligned disciplines is different. This kind of training does not naturally lead to plain speaking. The academic focus on being correct, with it, and above all a playa, this supersedes any issues like correct about what? How strange it is that so many folks who love complexity in language, for example Joyce and Beckett, hate complexity in music.

As I first mentioned, many composers say similar things about their music, but we tend give weight to the opinions of the successful, the composers of the moment, the old hands, not to mention the honored dead. Actual nobody cares at all about what composers say except other composers, foundation boards, and search committees. Well, perhaps a theorist or two if that particular composer is their subject. Take a terrible composer, like Schenker. He had insight into tonal music. The problem was he thought the history of music stopped with his personal likes and dislikes. Composer’s opinions tend the same way. What I like, my friends, The people on my team.

Then there is the problem of self interest. Self interest is a perfume that lingers around so many composers, and others, that the public is no longer interested in us as artistic leaders. This makes our talks all the more limited because even though we compose a work about "world peace" everyone knows or suspects that we threw Grandma under the bus to get the gig.

Today critics and academics take everything at face value. Critical thinking had its moment and it is past. This means that what the composers say about themselves, and others, has extra meaning. Well, it is an American tradition to reinvent one's self.

To put it bluntly believe the hype.

Just ask the "Howard Cosell" of new music.

about my improv's notes from Roulette

2009-02-15T20:56:00.000-06:00

Phil Fried

Fri Jan 30 - 8:30 PM

performer: Phil Fried,

Phil Fried: Man and Machine, Solo Bass with real time analog electronics.

An evening of experimental music and free jazz with Philip Fried, a composer and experimental improviser on the string bass who combines free jazz, serial music, atonal music, and electronics with an elegant lyricism.

Sequenza21 has described Phil's solo work as "entrancing."

Phil Fried, Minnesota composer/performer and 2008-09 McKnight Artist Fellow, was part of the exciting free jazz scene in the 1970's as a founding member of the New York City Artists Collective at 501 Canal Street. After a hiatus to study performance and composition he returned to composer/performing. Phil's studies include: a B.M in string bass performance with Julius Levine and composition with: Henry Weinberg, Hugo Weisgall l, George Perle, Ralph Shapey and Brian Ferneyhough. He also studied with Luigi Nono at Centre Acanthes in Avignon France.

Fried has performed solo at Roulette in NY, Chicago (most recently at the International Society of Improvising Musicians conve ntion), and all over the mid-western states. As classical composer he has received a centennial commission from the Minnesota orchestra for Episodes, and a commission for the new music ensemble Zeitgeist for their 30th Anniversary concert and recording. One of his piano works, I remember the 60's..or was it the 70's,? is featured on a recent Innova label release, Melville's Dozen," by New Zealand pianist Nikki Melville. Phil is an active "blogger" on both classicallounge.com and on newmusicbox.org. Phil Fried has maintained a free music composition lesson page since 1999 which can now be found on http://philipfried.blogspot.com/

The main portal into all things Phil is: PhilFried.com.

Man and Machine

Humanity has always found the machine to be a benefit to society. Yet on closer look we see that this relationship is fraught with passions and ambiguity. Machines can save lives or end them, build or destroy. Every machine use has its supporters and detractors. Every benefit its downside. Machines are not human but when we say "inhuman" we actually mean people taking on the aspects of a machine. Being emotionless.Then again machines are merely a reflection of their operators and programmers. My performance is an aural presentation of these ambiguities.

Solo Improvisation -- I found my voice as an instrumentalist performing on an upright electric bass. The sound is amplified/unamplified, processed/unprocessed, and mixed via touch and foot pedals by me in real time. The soundscapes I create are in touch with many styles of experimental music. My approach is non tonal as in my composed music but its effect is more intimate and personal. It was crucial for me that my first explorations into non/extended tonal materials were with jazz music. After the careful study of composed music and classical string bass technique I have come full circle and have returned to improvisation.

My use of electronics with my electric upright bass is an attempt to mine new ideas from old technologies in this case the analog MS-10. Time moves so fast that we tend to discard a technology before we can fully explore it. Since my electric upright is analog it would follow that my sound processing would also be analog synthesis. Since the upright electric bass is also a machine there is already an immersion into the electronic machine world. A dichotomy develops because the bass does not create its own sound, I have to play it, the Ms-10 is another story.

In my improvisations with real time electronics-since I am in the moment I don't think about anything-it just happens. That said, as an after thought, I realize that I either ignore, follow, comment, become one, or struggle against the electronic sounds. My performances can have the effect of projecting a trance like state to the audience.

new musicbox round up --- classical lounge wasn't working

2009-02-06T19:44:00.000-06:00

http://newmusicbox.org/chatter/chatter.nmbx?id=5839

Its easy to find a tautology to support ones likes and dislikes, and every dog has their day--It's just that one wonders what folks will say about our current composition scene 30 year from now-will they be as kind as Alex Ross was to 30 years ago? Probably not.

Artificial trends?
By philmusic

Artistic trends change and folks always find a way to show the rightness of this change. Especially if they like the new trend better.

That politics was partially responsible for the "artificial" support of non-tonal music seems plausible. Arnold Schoenberg as the"godfather" forcing those other composers to "sleep with da fishes" is not.

In either case this misses a much more important story.

Over the last decades American capitalism has abandoned any pretense of caring for the American worker - its not like their going to go out become communists are they?

The unintended results of the fall of communism is this:

The benevolence and artistic liberalism of American capitalism is revealed to be a sham. Jettisoned as soon as its not needed.

Why should the support serial or any difficult art be any different?

Phil Fried

And who may I ask is artificially supporting today's insiders?

Now a joke

Phil's patented operatic resume stuffer-respelled...
By philmusic

Colin: I composed an opera titled:

Leading Opera houses in the United States and Europe.

This work has two singing parts:

Major Roles and Prima Donna

So If you perform my work you can add to your resume:

Performed Major Roles in Leading Opera houses in the United States and Europe.

Or the Prima Donna in Leading Opera houses in the United States and Europe.

Phil Fried-

_____________________________________________________________

It seems that its the same conversations again and again folks pretending to have opinions being "bad" saying dumb and dumber things so I get w-ell you'll see:

http://newmusicbox.org/chatter/chatter.nmbx?id=5849

????
By philmusic

"...A charge that was raised herein, and one which frequently gets raised by folks who are anti-modernist, is that modernism engages in a willful obfuscation with the audience..."

Green

Rock

brake

noodle

small

kleghorn

shark

cola

Ebola

credit swap

Am I getting warm?

Phil Fried

Monday, February 02, 2009, 7:50:59 PM

Phil Fried Man and Machine

2009-01-16T11:29:00.000-06:00

Hey folks I'm off to NY for some solo performances

Jan 28, 8 PM Music on Macdougel
http://web.mac.com/msgouros/Site/M_o_M.html

Jan 30, 8:30 Roulette
http://roulette.org

See Ya There!!!

Notes from the underground

2008-12-26T21:50:00.001-06:00

Notes from the underground

Philip Fried

These are old posts I thought I might bring back warts and all..

The problems facing presenters and educators of the classical music arts today are:

A strong focus on popular music which creates a low level of music culture.
The rise of the new "populist movements" (which will be covered in a later article).
The scarcity of funds for the arts. The arts must pay their own way. Institutions, such as schools and arts presenters, need to attract students, therefore, they can't afford to alienate their clientele by being different or visionary. Our artistic leaders have decided to become followers of popular culture.

Value is the issue. The belief is facts are facts, holding to the idea that there is no difference between them, or that there can not be a set of facts that has more value than another. The entire concept of value has been disregarded. Discernment based on knowledge and artistic judgment is seen as reactionary. One important, and pernicious, idea of our times is that skill/technique and knowledge of one's art destroys creativity. We admire the child prodigy who's talent seems to appear as if by magic, not by the hard work and encouragement that it really takes. Most professional musicians were never prodigies.

Today we judge artists first, by their financial success and popularity, second, by their authority, and lastly, by their artistic knowledge. A large faction of the financially successful artists are unskilled, so it is impossible to judge them by any other criteria. Mass media reflects the foothold of these winners and sets the standard for acceptance.

The idea that knowledge destroys creativity also plays into the hands of the music and advertising industries who want to sell the cheapest product at the highest price. Money dictated that the symphony orchestra be replaced by a less expensive big band, which was replaced by an even less expensive rock band, which finally was replaced by the digital sampler. Today, a live concert only needs a computer and a technician. Every year the "new sound" gets cheaper to produce with more profit for the music companies. The classical record producers are also held to this profit margin. Popularity and marketing win out over edification and meaning. They no longer spend money on music education as in the past – e.g. The Victor Music Company and its education publications and recordings.

Today culture in America is advertisements, jingles, and commercial holidays. Pop music accompanies them all. Popular arts, music, film etc. must focus on literal representations of its ideas since they need to be obvious to be salable. This kind of art does not confront or challenge our imagination.

The popular entertainment business has real money and power. Institutions like, rather need, to associate with money and power, it is their only hope of survival today. These institutions must fight for funds and paying customers, they can't afford to challenge the prospective client's love of pop music. Even more unlikely is popular music's claim of intellectual content. The marketing of "New Music Seminars," which imply that knowing about the latest rock music product is learning. Look at any 50's teen magazine and you will see that teenagers were expected to know and own classical music as well as pop. Times have changed.

It is a well known fact that knowledge can set you free and improve your life, yet musically we are "dumbing down" our artistic horizons. Why is it that in this age of self interest we rob ourselves of the advantages of skill? Why do we feel that knowing who plays guitar faster is a sign of erudition? [this at least shows an interest in musicianship] We let commercial media control the limits of our knowledge through radio, TV, print, and now the Internet. We know that some ideas are more important than others. Our limited time on this planet requires artistic investigation and challenge Yet, more than ever to be labeled "cultured" is to be different, and to be out of touch with the real world.

I heard on the radio this week that the best selling, number one hit record on the classical charts was composed by a composer who does not read or write music. And, this recording in turn knocked off the previous number one classical hit of piano music performed by a pianist who can't play. I guess we should be thankful that there is a classical music chart and classical radio at all.

Where does one look to find alternatives to this nonsense? We can't always rely on others to solve this problem. Go to the museums, go to concerts, find out what is going on.. Take music lessons for yourself and your children from reliable teachers, attend lectures, and get involved in culture. Minnesota is far ahead of other states in arts support, take advantage of the richness of music in its many forms. Popular music is like simple geometry but there are many more shapes to explore. It is up to us, the music educators, to bring choice into our lives and those lives we touch in our teaching.

Philip Fried is a composer who teaches composition for adults and children at The Center for Performing Arts. Besides holding a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, he is a certified K-12 music specialist in the St. Paul Schools.

Speaking of Tonality………………..

2008-12-26T21:49:00.000-06:00

"I hate that stuff-its not music----why can't composers write some good, tonal, music?"

First things first its OK to like or dislike any music. That said, it seems that a personal statement of displeasure for some is not enough-- composers hear these complaints all the time. Your music is; ugly, its unnatural to listen to that I don't think that's music It's not tonal." "Why don't you listen to the radio it proves that tonality is the natural state for humans-so get with it."

Though some criticize non tonal/experimental music as too "intellectual" many will speak of the necessity of tonal logic. Further many non western cultures have a long tradition non tonal , non equal tempered music and they do just fine .I don't feel that music has to be tonal to be coherent nor do I feel that a tonal approach guarantees a compositions success, plenty of bad tonal music out there.

What is meant by tonal anyway? Is it a living concept that grows and changes or is it an El Derado where all music is equal tempered, diatonic, and in 4/4 time? Well the problem is-there isn't any music like that. Besides the fact that all great music is made up of exceptions to the rules consider: All symphonies and operas and many concertos, chamber music etc. would have to be discarded, as only keyboards and fretted instruments use equal temperament in actual performance. It was Famed chamber musician Julius Levine who told me that "the piano is always out of tune!"

Questions about tonality are difficult because who's tonality are we to refer to? Beethoven, Mozart Benjamin Britten Berg, Busoni, Gershwin Guido ArrezzoVarese Brahms Strauss, Wagner? The Talking Heads Sonic Youth, Pete Fountain, or John Coltrain, The Kingsman-(Louie Louie for example has a minor V?)

Theres a lot of tonality out there. The question of how our own works as composers are related to tonality, if at all is an interesting one. I don't intend to tread on the toes of a music theorist, I would like to take a more conversational tack.

This brings us back to the problem that tonality and diatonicism is not the same. The diatonicism that I think that critics refer to is recent in nature

Music can delight and upset it can enlighten and confound, it can entertain and ennoble. Music is also many things to many people --not so much a political party but as a faith. And we humans feel strongly about our faiths. The point I am trying to make is that--- like or dislike always proceeds the question of a challenging works tonality. To those who say that experimental (but what composition isn't an experiment)Common practice Tonality has not existed for some time (if ever)and it may surprise many readers that their favorite 20^th century works are at best only partially tonal.

It should point out that many leading scholars disagree about the nature of tonality, and the extent of tonalities reach into other musics pre tonal and post tonal , We live in a time where we believe that our own personal experiences, that is our own world as the most important . Today we look for tonality everywhere in older music rather then find renaissance and Medieval functions lurking behind todays tonalities.

Tonality as we know it has not been around very long-it mutates from generation to generation. Even today "tonal" music genres can sound very different and use tonality in completely different ways new age which emphasizes stasis and Minamalism which emphasizes motion.

Today many different musical styles have there own musical feature which are unique,

intro Schoenberg

Oddly enough for every theorist who criticized Schoenberg for his non-tonal works for being non tonal and therefore incoherent, he had defenders who said these works were in fact tonal, and coherent and produced tonal analysis to prove it. Again in this argument tonality was seen as a given. The question was not whether Schoenberg was tonal at all but whether the theorist likes the music. It is understood but nowhere stated that a work could not be coherent without tonality. Of course this was separate from Schoenberg's own ideas. Schoenberg described his music as pantonal not atonal. Again this brings me back to an important point that the like or dislike of a composition precedes questions of tonality. (Can you imagine a scientific theory that decided it didn't like the concept of say for example Black Holes and left them out)?

More On Orchestration

2008-11-21T14:25:00.000-06:00

Personal notes from perfect pitch:

Formally I liked this years composers.

I found it interesting that at the last reading sessions the composers each brought a "new sound" with them. That is, a gesture of some type that could perhaps be thought of as a signature. This involved the use of extended techniques yet these sounds were not of the overall type but rather a single exposed effect. For me Orchestration has been about the presentation of musical ideas through instruments. Effects have their place but proposing a new sound does not necessarily prove mastery.

Several rookie errors were on tap:

Too much pure (section) tone.

To much massed brass and percussion.

Pitched percussion didn't seem to have an identity -these parts might have worked better in the woodwinds or plucked strings.

Not enough woodwinds.

Not enough mixed timbres.

Instrumentation balance-

In tutti's you could see the strings sawing away but you could not hear them.

Really really long held notes in the string bass - this was more of a problem last year.

I wanted to re-orchestrate the whole bunch and see what they thought!

just da lessons text color is important!!

2008-11-08T16:08:00.000-06:00

This is me.

Welcome friends and music lovers.
you see folks I turned my text white so you couldn't see it!!--now ya can!!!

Philip Fried
1419 Hewitt Ave.
St. Paul MN 55104
PHILMUSIC@aol.com
ASCAP Member

Business Description:

Musician, Teacher, Composer, Choir Director, Bass Player, Singer

On this page you will find self directed composition lessons in section 1, and some stuff about me in section 2.

Site Updates: New Lesson; Orchestration and some updates on rhythm

After 9 years this page is being shut down by AOL

Until PhilFried.com is up and running

You can find my music composition lessons on my page at the Classicallounge.com -below is my blog page

More Rants at the classical Lounge!

Just Awarded a McKnight!

Three Solo Bass Performances at Dreamland Arts in Saint Paul

Sundays at 7, Sept. 21, Oct. 19, Nov. 23

Nikki Melville, Piano CD is out! http://innova.mu/artist1.asp?skuID=334#

Also Commissioned by Zeitgeist for their 30th Anniversary concerts " The Itty Bitty Symphony" Janet thinks I should call it "Not a lota Sonata"

It will be recorded!

Http://zeitgeistnewmusic.org

Phils Rants

More Rants at the classical Lounge! I've got to work on that Opera! It's Done!

A New Sound file The Multitude—Really an old song arranged for Soprano and Harp

For Anna and Aaron's Wedding

The Multitude

Text; Walt Whitman

Janet Fried. Soprano Sarah Grudem, Harp

Amelia's Lament

Text; Phil Fried

From my Opera; The Dungeon Of Esmeralda

Janet Fried. Soprano Mary Jo Payne, piano

Also, I'm now at Facebook

Some Foster Willey Pics!!! see his site! http://fosterwilley.com/

Now at Roulette's Noisy Lounge!

Look for me! I mean listen for me—oh whatever!

http://www.roulette.org/noisy/audio_archive/10.07.05.1.html

Now Three mp3's of my solo performances at Acadia courtesy of my space:

http://www.myspace.com/varese2

also

http://www.myspace.com/philmusic

Upcoming performances in Minneapolis and Saint Paul

"Events"

and a Foster Pic!

What was new:

March 18 Salon Concert studio z-solo bass

Friday, September 14, 2:30 PM at Northwestern University

Indigo Lounge, I perform solo bass, “A stick in the eye,” at the ISIM convention Chicago

September 28, 2007, on the Carleton College campus. Nikki Melville, Piano will premiere my commissioned piano work:I remember the 60's, or was it the 70's? Is it pandering? You decide?

a Minnesota Orchestra Centennial Commission!

Also supported by Meet the Composer's Creative Connection Grant

Read the Review!

Reviews

Extreme Phil!!! October 2006

Tuesday Night at Acadia June 5—Solo Bass!

New Lesson:

Film Music and Opera 2007

Check out some mp3's!

Phil and Chris Granias perform free jazz at Studio Z

My new improvisation CD's “A Stick in the eye,” live at Acadia, and “Left for Dead,” Live at Roulette, are now available! $15 dollars includes shipping and handling. Money orders only!

“Left for Dead” is also available as a DVD for 20 bucks!
Section One:
Composition Lessons:

Lesson 1 Introduction

Lesson 2 Style

Lesson 3 Review

Lesson 4 Composing for the voice

Lesson 5 Atonality Part 1

Lesson 6 Atonality Part 2: Atonality in popular music

Lesson 7 Questions of Form

Extended Vocal Techniques lesson 8

Phil’s Style-A-Matic 2000! lesson 9

12-Tone to Serial-Rhythm lesson 10

12-tone lesson 11

kid's stuff lesson 12

Phil’s Method of composing vocal music lesson 12a

Geometry and Math June 13/01 lesson 14

Melody and the anti-romantic revolt the 1920's lesson 15

Music Theater September /02 lesson 16

Self criticism or how do I make myself a better composer, A question of accompaniment lesson 17.

Art and Technology lesson 18

Musicus Simplisticus (Nov. 2005) lesson 19

Music Drama

The inner game of Orchestration

Section Two:
Stuff about me:

All About Phil

Upcoming Performances & Current Work

Reviews

About My Music

New Composition List 2008

Children's Music

Phils Rants

Links

A reminder all materials on this site is copyrighted.
Any re-publication of this material on a web site or in print or any other form,
must have my permission. Anyway...

...How about a composition lesson?

Lesson 1

What do you want to compose? Popular, Jazz Classical, New Age, Rap etc. Why are you studying composition? That is, do you want to know as much as possible about music or do you want to limit your knowlege to what is the most practical for yourself? I don't mean original and unoriginal--just your point of departure. Since this column will be a self-teaching guide you can chose to use or ignore anyparts of it. I will work from the notion that you want to know it all. We will try to understand all forms of music composition.

Once you have decided what style you want to compose ---study the models, that is, the music you like best and least. Try to emulate the work of another composer you respect.

For Classical:
Take the tack that Rossini took. Look at Mozart Piano Sonatas copy them out by hand, just copy out the melody and try composing your own accompaniment--or copy out the accompaniment and create your own top line. Compare with the original.

For Popular:
If you are a song writer--take a favorite song and try different accompaniments and chord voicings to go with the melody.

Help! What's a melody?
What's an accompaniment?
Answer --get a music dictionary and a harmony book that fits the style of music you want to compose. I like Arnold Schoenberg's books and Walter Piston's Harmony. However, I don't want to promote any specific materials.

I feel that you should learn to read music. Be aware that notation of popular music is not so easy to read because the rhythmic nature of the melody of popular songs is often very complex.

To compose you need some things: A musical idea, ( for example a melody an accompaniment),a way to notate your ideas--notation, a lead sheet, midi, or recording, and if composing a song, a text.

Study Chords and their voicings and functions--
for this I suggest the piano. For guitar, try different strums and parts of chords and how they work together.

Well that's the first lesson.

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Lesson 2

A note about style: it is important to familiarize your self with as many different styles of music as possible. There are no rules for what you should like or dislike in music -- discover it for yourself.

An overview of styles you might try :

"In," "Out," and "Ironic"
In or Out -- I am not referring to trends of popularity, or a political meaning, these are terms borrowed from Jazz terminology.
.
"In" music is that music which sounds familiar, diatonic, pentatonic, tonal, equal tempered, and most often lead by a steady beat. This category includes most pop music, as well as some classical, jazz, Motion Music (i.e. minimalism), and film music. What you mostly hear on any radio station. Familiarity can change music that is initially "out" music into "in."

"Out" music refers to music that has vestiges of "In" music, but breaks through these conventions in some way harmonically, rhythmically, or in form. (I will take this up in more detail later.) This also includes composition materials such as different scales, (Many MIDI keyboards have different scale options try them out!), electronic sounds, etc. contribute to stretching the conventions of "In" music. Some of the composers and performers that would fall in this category are: Arnold Schoenberg (atonal and 12-tone compositions), Edgard Varese (atonal and electronic music) John Coltraine or Sun Ra (Free Jazz improvisation). Free Jazz improvisation may not be connected to a steady beat or pulse, a key center or any particular scale. A study of John Coltrain’s complete recordings would be a great idea!

The third category is what I term "Ironic" music. This is music that uses an idea, or several ideas (usually a textual idea) to change the meaning of the musical composition. (Imagine the picture of a hat and the caption "This is not a hat." A text idea that can become even more important then the picture, or music itself.) Examples of this would be the deceptively simple music of Erik Satie, the Opera’s of Virgil Thomson, or the rock music of Frank Zappa, look at his satirical texts in a rock music context!

But Irony could also be any external idea being used to define aspects of a music composition. For example, in Elliott Carter’s string quartets, and in other works, instruments have pre-compositional defined roles, they are not just playing the music but also playing ironic character parts. Rather than work a string quartet as four equal instruments, or as four aspects of the same voice.

I must also include quotation music in the ironic category. Alban Berg’s Violin concerto’s concerto is an important starting point.

Hold it!!! Isn’t this just program music?

Well, it’s related. Program music refers particularly to instrumental music that has a scenario, a story. The story is illustrated by the music. In that sense program music is a mixed genre composition. Program music is an Opera, a Ballet, or a play without words. Examples: Fantastic Symphony, by Berlioz or The Unanswered Question, by Charles Ives. However ironic music requires no complete scenario and is not limited to instrumental music. Pierre Boulez, in his Structures I, uses mathematics as an ironic element to define all aspects of the composition.

Of course if we take this concept too far, any pre-composition idea could be seen as ironic. Not all external ideas are ironic some are just composition choices. For example, deciding what instruments you are composing for -- two pianos, is not ironic, deciding that they will be twelve different pianos of increasing size is. Ironic music is not automatically "In or Out." In my opinion, Ironic music can only be "out" if it is musically "out" not "in", with an excuse such as a standard tonal piece given a pseudo-intellectual title to throw it in the avant garde. (I think I will expand on this idea in the next lesson.)

In literature, and the fine arts we are very accepting of intellectualism. Rock music reviews in particular are known to overlay many intellectual ideas onto basically commercial dance music.
In music and music theater, on the other hand. we will only accept literary Intellectualism if the music is In, very "In". Not the other way around. We live in a time where musical intellectualism is not valued. That is not a judgment, just the times we live in.

To Do’s
1. Familiarize yourself with three new composers of varying styles. Find out about their styles and composition choices. Listen to their music.
2. Read: Marion Bauer’s Twentieth Century Music (out of print) for background.
3. Get a piano sonatina book (M. Clementi) (this was in previous lesson):
· take one piece identify the chords
· copy the piece out by hand
· copy out the melody line and write a new accompaniment
· write a new melody/top line to go with the orignal accompanyment. Compare your work with the original.
4 Define Program music, absolute music, concerto, atonal, quotation music, phase music
Good Luck!

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Lesson 3

Review and Addenda

Lets backtrack. The term Ironic music is only justified when one or more external ideas is equal to, or more important than, the musical idea. Not all of Boulez’s music is Ironic, neither is Carter’s, or Ives (re: quotation music -- Ives also uses quotations, lot of them, pre-dating Berg).

John Cage is a composer who is known for adding "ideas" to his music. In this case, aleatoric music, or "the music of chance". For example, Cage uses his interpretation of eastern philosophy (the "I Ching") to transform the composer/performer relationship.

Typically, a composer controls their musical materials by specifying how the music is played. In aleatoric music a composer can play with the very idea of this control, by controlling, or not controlling, aspects of their musical materials (leaving it to chance). This idea of control also applies to jazz improvisation, especially free jazz improvisation, where the performer is not tied down to a key or steady beat. Lately there has been some discussion as to whether the Minimalist school is related to John Cage's work. It is just as likely that the Minimalists are decedents of the German composer Carl Orff, who's Kinder Music's style and orchestration, show a very strong resemblance.

I think that even if you don’t want to use various ideas and techniques, you must search widely, and learn as much as possible.

Ironic Problems

One of the problems of irony is that it can end up celebrating the subjects it tries to skewer. Not only can irony pass for the real thing, it can become the real thing. Zappa's song“Valley Girl” was his biggest hit. Did the record buying public get the subtext behind the “fun” novelty record, or did Frank sell out? Oddly, this might be Zappa's greatest cultural contribution as well, if you don't argue he invented rap music with “Cosmic Debris”. Anyway, since many people can chose to ignore (or misunderstand) ironic elements it cannot be the only factor to define “in” or “out”.

In film Spike Lee's “Bamboozled” does a pretty good job of ”against all flags” irony, as does Gore Vidal”s “Myra Breckenridge”.

To Do’s:
1. Look up Boulez, Carter, Cage, Ives, and Aleatoric.
2. Examine several different compositions by the same composer, decide which ones are Ironic.
3. Examine Ives 100 Songs.
Pick a song and find the quotations.
4. Compose your own "phase" composition.
5. Investigate aleatoric notation and then compose your own aleatoric composition.

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Lesson 4: Setting the text

Basic text setting

Set in your native tongue first. You know this language and its nuance best.

Words have rhythm. Music has rhythm. The art of setting the text is to make the word rhythms align with music’s rhythm and meter. Doing this will give your vocal music a natural feeling, making the words easy for the singer to enunciate and for the audience to hear and understand.

Word rhythms are understood as having strong and weak accents/stresses. In English, a compound syllable word usually has one primary stress, for example hip-po-‘pot-a-mus. In some cases the pronunciation of a word shows no primary stress because of context within a sentence. It is best to check a dictionary and to read the text aloud to hear the patterns. Musical meter also has strong and weak beats. Elegant placement of word accents on musical meter is called good scansion.

Other forms of accent:
Another way to accenting words is not by beat placement, but by duration. Generally the longer a note is held, or lasts the more accent it has. There are two ways to accent by duration.
1. tied notes, that is a single note of long duration.
2. melisma -- passage work/coloratura, a lot of notes per syllable sustaining the vowel sound.

About the voice:
First things first -- who are you writing this song for and what are their strengths, weaknesses, range boundaries, etc.? Yourself?

Familiarize yourself with the basic singing voices ranges:
Male:
Bass – F (octave and ½ below middle c) to c (middle c)
Baritone – G (octave and ½ below middel c) to f(1) (fourth above middle c)
Tenor – d to c(2) (which is notated one octave higher)
Female:
Alto/Contralto – g (just below middle c to c(2) high c two octaves above middle
Mezzo-Soprano – a (just below middel c to c(2)
Soprano – c (middle c) to a(2) but depending on the kind of soprano maybe has high as c(4)

Be sure to study a wide range of vocal music Purcell, Dowland, and Handel (for English), Bellini, Puccini, Verdi, Rossini, Mozart, Schubert, Schumann, Wagner, Schoenberg, Berg, Wolf, etc.

Vocal orchestration—remember the ability of a singer to reach certain pitches and extreme registers does not mean that the singer can enunciate language in those registers. Open vowels are best at the extreme ends of the registers. Avoid two rookie composer mistakes ( that I also made in my student days), (1) writing a work with too large a vocal range, and even worse, (2) expecting singer to make words understandable at extreme ranges. As I mentioned above, take into consideration the particulars of the voice you are writing for, there are many different kinds of sopranos, for example, some dramatic, light, flexible, etc. My vocal mistakes, and everyone else's, are based on a very simple fact – that a composer can't generalize what singers can do by the study of a single unique voice. The “new music” specialist singer and the opera singer usually have very different techniques but both have much to offer. Do not confuse them and your vocal works will sing. Experience is the best teacher.

The solo singer like the first violin or any other soloist is expected to project themselves up front in the mix and over the orchestra. To insure that a vocal part won't be covered up, unless that is your intension, keep your accompaniments out of the way. So, don't cover the registers you want the singers to be heard in. Also don't power up the brass to close in register to the singers

There are 3 ways to compose with vocal texts:
· text first then music (my favorite)
· text and music together—mostly singer/songwriter method
· music first than text—mostly when you are working with collaborators (ex. musicals)

Texts
You can set anything you want – prose or poetry. If you choose a rhyming text remember that a rhyming text imposes a poetic structure.

I suggest that you start using texts that are in public domain (P.D.) These texts have no copyright restrictions. Or, write your own text (make sure you get it copyrighted).

Using Copyrighted materials requires permission from the publisher. Look in the book, find the publisher, call them to locate the permissions editor (usually they give permissions to reviewers), send them your proposal etc. DO NOT SET A TEXT UNTIL YOU HAVE THE PERMISSION IN HAND. You may be given permission to compose your vocal work, non exclusive rights, but they may also reserve their right to negotiate fees, when the work is published.

Translations: recent translations of P.D materials will also require a permission from the copyright holder, if you want to translate a P.D. text you should copyright it yourself. Contact the Library of Congress for the forms.

To Do’s
Compose a syllabic setting of any poem you chose for piano and voice

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Lesson 5: Atonality (Part 1)

The move to atonality took shape because of many factors: one being that late romantic complex counterpoint gradually had the effect of chorale harmony with some ornamental filigree around it (Wagner’s overture to Lohengrin for example). The overture has the effect of the same melody repeating over and over, the other parts supporting the melody. Contrapuntal parts project a single part with another part as melismatic elaboration.

The gradual move to atonality can be seen in the use of note doublings in Debussy . An octave doubling has generally been seen as ubiquitous (and no cause for alarm), just a reinforcement of a note or an expansion into a different octave. What if you doubled a note (it parallels the primary note and has the same exact same rhythm), not with octaves but with 3rds, 5ths, or both, not as independent voices but as projections of a single note. These doublings would of course exactly follow the principal note -- since they are not independent. It is possible that complex and thick textures could be developed from basically two-part counterpoint.

A further elaboration of this idea is the technique called polytonality. Polytonality features parts in different keys at the same time. For example, in a piano work the treble part is in G major with appropriate key signature and the bass part is in a different key, say, A major with an A major key signature. This assures that there will be contrast between the triadic doublings in the composition's different parts. Polytonality is a misnomer as these resulting chords are not dependent on opposing keys but on contrapuntal voices that are doubled. Further, keys don’t really oppose each other, rather, they blend into distinctive unified harmonic formations that are projections of the lowest note.

Schoenberg’s move to atonality is not much different from Debussy’s except that Schoenberg’s doublings have more chromatic elaborations around the basic doublings, and his elaborations do not move in exact rhythm with the melody or controlling voice. They "hover" around the main notes because they are slightly offset, and there are many more surface parts to double. See Schoenberg's "Erwartung."

The two methods mentioned above seem to me to be related. Both break down what we know as common tonality practices. The difference is simply a matter of degree of surface dissonance. (To generalize the French school less, and the German School more.) As this is a practical guide to composition I will leave the question of what is tonality aside, in favor of explaining different recent composers approaches to this problem.

Assignments:

*

Compose a piano work with an independent slow moving bass and a melody doubled by major triads (major 3rd plus perfect 5th) in root position.
*

Take the same composition adding chromatic and rhythmic elaborations to the upper triads, to offset them. Also add associated parts to the bass.

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Lesson 6: Atonality (Part 2) Atonalism in Popular Music:

Tonality is no longer what it once was. Today, songs can start in one key and end in another. The transposition of a section by consecutive upward moving semi-tones is a pervasive feature of popular music. These transpositions, as opposed to modulations, are a technique from serial music.

Harmony:

In jazz harmony as well as Rameau’s (Baroque) harmony, triads (3 note chords) no longer rule. These triads are expanded. Chords are stacked to become 7th, 9th, and 11th chords. Frequently these chords omit the 3rd and the 5th of the chord. Songs no longer end with a tonic triad, but may be a 9th or at least a Major 7th chord.

Leading Tone:

If you remember your solfège, a diatonic scale goes Do-Re-Mi-Fa-Sol-La-Ti -Do. "Ti" is the leading tone of the scale bringing us back to "Do" -- but popular music tends to omit the leading tone. A study of the music of Laura Nyro would be instructive. A typical cadence is V7 to I, but in Laura Nyro’s music a cadence is described in C major as an F/G in the bass (an F major triad with a G in the bass---G-F-A-C). This could be related to an 11th chord with an omitted 3rd and 5th, G-omitted b-d-F-A-C. Which ever way you look the leading tone is gone.

Ms. Nyro’s music suggests a pan-diatonicism, which is the term the Arnold Schoenberg used to describe his own non-tonal music. In addition you can freely add to a major scale chord’s formations, notes from its related pentatonic scales. In C major: Major C-D-E G-A Minor C D Eb F-G Bb and add the Blue note F# -- notice that the leading tone is also absent from these scales. The bass motion in these progressions remains the same as traditional harmony, but in popular music the bass can freely improvise over harmonic patterns which becomes strongly accented by use of the electric bass.

Examples: To a tonic triad --CEG -- and D, or and Eb, or add A.

Resolution of Dissonance:

In popular music dissonance no longer has to be resolved at all. This is because dissonance becomes part of the harmonic formation. For example in a C major a tonic triad (C-E-G) the note A (not a member of the triad) would resolve by step down to G, a triad member. Today the note would stay as part of the chord formation, no longer being resolved. On the other hand, the note F frequently does resolve to E in C major. This resolution is a main feature of popular music.

Dance Stuff-Electronics:

Since the dance beat is primary most anything you add on top of the primal beat will work. Different expressions of the beat pattern can be mixed together, collided against each other, or used as a way to introduce a new pattern. It is common for DJ’s to mix different songs (loops) in different keys at the same time -- as long as their BPM beats per minute match up. I have already mentioned that the segues between songs are dissonant. The only limitations here are the confines of the dance itself. For example, the dance version of "Mission Impossible" was in 4/4 time when the original was in 5/4 time (3+2). The dance requires groupings of even beats. I suggest trying loops of contrasting tension and contrasting styles, classical, country, western, funk, anything. Or, try related BPM’s 100, 50, 66.6, etc

A false sense of tonality:

Consonance in and of itself does not guarantee tonality. This is because tonality is more than just the “harmony” or the use of pleasant sounds. Tonality is made up of many reciprocating parts such as; rhythm, meter, motives, phrases, harmony, form, dynamics, etc. As in my “style-a-matic 2000” to alter any one of these aspects while still retaining many other tonal features still changes everything. Through these transformations we move into new musical realms -- that is experimentation and the atonal.

It doesn't really matter that many composers and their supporters believe that their favorite works are tonal when they “ain't.“ One wonders why the word atonal is so disparaged by composers these days. One hopes its not because tonality sells, and sells big!

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Lesson 7: Questions of Form:

Find a book on the subject of musical form and study it. You should know the following: phrases - antecedent and consequent, ABA, Dance forms, sonatina, sonata, concerto, song form, strophic, theme and variation, etc. Remember not just to study the book’s diagrams but also to study the masters.

Review and refinement :

There are several ways that we can use compositions as models.

1) I have already described copying out a composer's composition by hand. It is also possible to arrange a work from one medium to another. For example: arrange a piano sonata for string quartet, a string quartet for a symphony, etc. Study the differences between accompaniments in each of these compositional types.

2) I have asked you to add your own melodies and basses to previously composed materials.

a)Copy out a Clementi, Mozart, Haydn, Schubert bass part (the first 16 measures of a piano sonata for example) then compose a melody to fit. Compare with the original. Then continue.

b)Now try it the other way around, use the original melody and compose a new accompaniment.

I would call this technique of working with musical lines linear modeling.

3) To work with and understand form, I use a technique that I call integrated modeling, which means that you compose both parts, treble and bass, melody and accompaniment, at once. Copy out an antecedent phrase, bass and treble line (melody and accompaniment), compose your own consequent phrase to answer it. Continue and compare with the originals.

4) Some composers will choose a work as a model and then recompose the entire composition.

You can combine these techniques as needed to focus in on the aspects of composition you wish to perfect. For example you could use these techniques to focus on: thematic structure, harmonic structure, phrase structure, development, etc. I suggest working with one concept at a time so you won't get confused and frustrated. Don't push yourself to fast! When you completely understand a concept then move on to the next one!

Which composers do I use for models?

Of course you can use any composer for a model. But start easy, someone like Clementi and work your way up. Mozart, Haydn, Rossini, Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Chopin. Baroque, Late Romantic, and Renaissance styles are more difficult.

If you your wondering why I have not mentioned Bach, or his simpler compositions as models, be forewarned -- Bach is hard. Bach also requires a study of strict counterpoint. You should certainly include counterpoint in your studies but don't start with Bach. (Saltzer/Schacter Counterpoint in Composition and Schoenberg’s book will do).

Oh! It might be efficient if your first hand copy of the composition and your subsequent recompositions were the same size and format. That way you could overlay your recompositions on to the originals for comparison.

Good Luck!

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12-Tone Music part one:

To understand this music we will start at the beginning. You may not realize that 12-tone music has been around for a very long time (1923?), and still continues today. 12-tone music is a way of organizing atonal music in a more consistent fashion. Many early atonal works dwell on the sensuous qualities of the non-harmonic formations themselves and utilize non-standard forms. Though Schoenberg composed atonal works in traditional forms, he was unsatisfied with the results feeling that atonal music was not suited for traditional forms. Schoenberg felt that atonal music needed a vocal text for formal deliniation. Perhaps he felt that atonal music was more Wagnarian (text based), 12-tone music more Brahmsian (absolute music). Books to study Schoenberg’s essays in Style and Idea, Part V, 12-tone composition, and George Perle’s Serial composition and atonality.

Questions about 12 tone music:

Is it math?

True Schoenberg had a thing about numbers, especially number 13, look at Erwartung, measure 313! However Schoenberg’s row charts are pitch charts not number charts.

Is it all rules?

There are many rules but you can chose which rules to follow.

Does it replace inspiration?

Negatory on that.

Hasn’t this music ruined it for the rest of us?

The continued popularity of any work depends on its quality. Since personal politics tends to die with the composer, of what are you afraid?

Is there only one method of 12-tone music?

No. There is a wide variety as seen in the work of Alban Berg, Anton Webern, and Luigi Dallapiccola among others.

Assignment : Look up these composers.

I don’t like it do I have too?

No, but a composer needs to understand even the music they don’t like.

Are there any limitations with 12-tone music?

It has been pointed out that you have the limitation of only 12 notes at a time, if you feel that is a limitation.

Many 12-tone composers have changed their styles recently, what does this mean?

This question would be better answered in 12-tone part too, but anyway…

Some composers create trends and others follow them, and trends tend to change. Remember what Roger Sessions said: "composers are doers of deeds." That is, judge composers compositions on their quality not their style. Consider that Schoenberg created masterworks in 4 styles: tonal, late romantic, atonal, 12-tone.

Assignment:

From Style and Idea page 233, example 13, create a short composition.

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Kid stuff Composition for kids:

Think of an image, for example; daylight, ice cream, water, rain, etc. and create a composition from it.

Materials needed: an instrument, voice, or instruments, and a means of notation (paper and pencil, video camera, sound recorder, etc.)

Work on your ideas first, then try to create a plan for your composition. For example; morning- sunshine-rain-sunshine. Contrast creates an interesting composition. Then perfect the composition. Practice your composition until you think it is finished—it has a form, and you can play it exactly (or close to) the same way every time.

This is different from improvisation, which is composing while you perform. Improvisation is an important skill, just as important as composition. One fun improvisation is to have several kids have musical "conversations" using instruments and sounds instead of talking. Improvisation is much more then a compositional scratch pad (but it can be that too).

A Philosophical point:

Anyone can be creative in any number of contexts. A composer takes ownership of their talent through their work. More work more ownership and the great feelings that go with it. Less work less ownership.

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If you want to teach composition to children using this website, I pose the following questions:

Why do you want to teach composition?
Have you studied composition and want to share your knowledge?
Have you been told by the "State" that music composition is a requirement?
What is your experience as a composer? What is your knowledge of the public or private world of composition?
Are you prepared, or qualified, to give an authentic child centered music composition experience to your students?
How much ownership will you allow your students as individuals to have? Any? None?
If you are using technology assisted composition are you willing to let the computer program define the compositional results for your students?
How much artistic freedom are you willing to give your students, and how much technical guidance are you able to give?
Can you improve the content of your students work?
How much time do you have for your project?

What is the top of your compositional food chain? Symphony, Opera, Jazz, Ethnic music, or the popular song in its many incarnations. Be honest because the difference is critical.
In the real world, with some exceptions, composing classical music is an individual activity, creating a popular song music a collaborative activity.
Jazz requires not only composition but can require improvisation and group performance as well —can you do this?
The creation of a popular song from its lead sheet, to its final musical arrangement may have dozens of people adding and changing the final product and the composer may not even have the final say.
On the other hand professional singer/songwriters and popular musicians in general tend to have very little formal training.
If you are a songwriter, do you feel qualified to teach classical music?
For example: do you like experimental or dissonant music?
Would you find dissonant or experimental music unacceptable as a student's project?. Why?
As a teacher please remember that many popular songs are commercial products some of which exist not for a child's well being but to exploit them for profit.
From 12-Tone to Serial-Rhythm

The difference between 12-tone and serial music is that in 12-tone music only the pitch is given a row. In serial music all musical elements (rhythm, register, dynamics, etc.) can be, or will be govern by a row. That is, non-tonal approaches can be adapted to all aspects of a musical composition not just the pitch.

Rhythm and meter:

What is tonal rhythm?

Tonal meter implies downbeats and upbeats, strong and weak beats that are discernible, as well as metric regularity. Tonal rhythm dwells in this metric landscape. Tonal rhythm can be stretched, but not broken. Even if a down beat is only implied its still creates tonal rhythm. Composers can get around this by creating formal designs that never seem to arrive. For example, the down beat, or main point of arrival, can never reached (Sibelius, Debussy) or reached only once at an unexpected point.

Breaking down tonal rhythm:

Motor rhythm addresses this problem by creating constant accent—no weak beats. Parts of Stravinsky’s Rite Of Spring is all down beats. Everything an unnotated 1/8 measure. The move from constantly changing meter groups of changing 2’s and 3’s stretch tonal rhythm but rely on tonal rhythm for their effect. Or, if a work has no point of arrival it can have no strong beats.

Messiaen with his use of bird song and Indian ragas creates consecutive uneven subdivision which also obscures meter. Rather then motor rhythms Messiaen would create uneven durations. For example, changing groups of even quarters to uneven 16ths and back—this will also disrupt tonal rhythm as the changing accents would then fall in between the metric beats.

What next?

The move into rhythmic serialization comes from the above two directions; from motor rhythms (i.e. meter-or letting the rhythm define the meter), a prominent feature of modern music of the Neoclassical school. This is the constant reiterated groupings of steady pulse or a single note type eighth quarter etc. Examples would be found in the music of Babbitt in his "time point system", and Carter in his "tempo modulations", or from the direct manipulation of durations (i.e rhythm-rhythm disrupts or disintegrates the meter), as in the music of Messiaen and Boulez.

The constant reiteration of a single note (duration) also implies a tempo, Ives composed orchestral works where 2 or more different tempos(related or not) exist at once.

Carter, who worked for Ives, tends to assign a particular note type(duration) to each individual part. A composition can then have any number of different parts with different note types or tempos for each part. This creates an cumulative effect obscuring pulsation.

Babbitt, in his time point system uses 12 as a way to subdivide measures into equal units of time points(attacks-he does not define the durations). These equal units are related to motor rhythms as they are uniform just like motor rhythms are-but their effect is completely different. Time points push rhythm past the concept of tonal rhythm. Since Babbitt’s music unfolds at a constant- rate, the change in measures has a drastic effect on the surface density of his music. a 6/4 measure would feature eighth notes (Calm) a 2/4 measure 16 note triplets (intense) . (These audible changes in surface density was the subject of a paper of mine on Babbitt's String Quartet No. 3).

If serial music is a refinement of 12-tone technique, where does rhythmic serial technique fit in?

Total serialization, of which rhythmic serialization is a part, was not necessarily a natural outgrowth of 12-tone music, but rather part of a accelerated nationalistic musical "arms race" after WW2. It was a matter of getting there first-and for art, first is not always best—Remember that Hauer came up the combinatorial row before Schoenberg. The most successful compositional techniques are those that mature over time.

Early attempts at rhythmic serialization are numerical groupings of motor rhythms, or durations--this causes strange musical effects in some works. Otherwise sophisticated works are saddled with a simplistic rhythmic element that seems foreign to the rest of the composition. This is not the case with the music of modernist pioneer Ruth Crawford-Seeger.

Other methods of rhythmic precomposition include; creating rhythmic relations; durations, meter, tempos, derived from the 12-tone interval set, or from a special interval series or chord (see Hemholtz), or from any rhythmic/metric design of the composers imagination.

Bartok, was fond of using the Fibonacci series to define rhythm and meter --see George Perle's book.

What is an irrational measure?

Ok, folks lets stop making sense! In music there is usually more than one way to notate anything but if we focus on uneven durations it seems only likely that uneven measures will surely follow. "2 and 3/5 quarter" "3 and 3/32 eighths" etc. These measures by their very nature obscure tonal rhythm. Tonal points of arrival are constantly reset.

An irrational measure is a way to facilitate many of the techniques mentioned above. They can be a compositional element, they can also be used to notate precise tempo changes, or to graft different rhythmic elements together. For example a "7 triplet" or a "2 and 1/3" quarter measure might work better than a 4/4 plus 3/4 or a 7/8 measure with a different tempo than the proceeding music in a given situation. They can also be used as an ossia, an alternative notation to make some notational problem easier and more clear. True, they can also be more fussy and time consuming. I would suggest that irrational measures work best in smaller groups compositions,

Henry Weinberg in his Cantus Commemberabils 1, sets a single tempo then uses his row intervals to create durations and irrational measures into a varied and intricate surface.

What is a nested measure?

Unlike the irrational measure which is a a rhythmic (durational) innovation, the nested measure is a metric innovation. A nested measure is where say a 4/4 measure is divided and subdivided into triplets within triplets within triplets within triplets etc. In a sense it is placing measures within measures. This technique can, like the irrational measure, create very precise and rapid changes of tempo with in a measure. Nesting is also a way to precisely notate several different and contrasting tempos going on simultaneously with losing control of their relationships. Though Nesting does not necessarily obscure tonal rhythm as tonal meter is still the reference though that reference could be just that. Nesting is a feature of Ralph Shapey's music.

Many serial and 12-tone works already have analyses available for study, why not consult these instead of copying these out by hand?

The irony of recent theoretical approaches is that they are not about theory at all but about certainty. The accurate retelling of a works precompositional material is a fine thing but it is not an analysis of a work any more than a blueprint is an analysis of a building. A blueprint does not describe the experience of a structure in time and space only its dimensions. Many works which use rows and or serial techniques have very similar blueprints, but their compositional effect is completely different. The question to ask is not how closely the composer follows their "system," but what are the results and the musical effect?

Assignments:

Find the spot in the "Rite Of Spring" where everything is accented as a down beat.

Find the Symphony of Sibelius where there seems to be no down beat.

Read Messiaen’s "Technique De Mon Language Musical"

Create your own rhythmic "set", then use it.

Think about how you would serialize "dynamics", and what would be the effect.

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Phil’s Style-A-Matic 2000!

There are a plurality of musical styles. Many of these styles are created by blending elements of different historical, foreign, and popular styles together. In analyzing all these properties of different styles, we see that we have unlimited resources for creating compositions.

Let’s take a look at a few Western historical styles and consider just four important stylistic elements: MELODY, HARMONY, FORM, and RHYTHM. (Of course there are many more elements to experiment with: orchestration, scales and tunings, improvisation, theatrical effects to name a few.)

Medieval, Renaissance, Classical, Romantic, Late Romantic, Atonal, Modern Tonal, Rock n’ Roll.

Let’s slice and dice:

Medieval Melody + Classical Harmony + Atonal Form + Rock n’ Roll Rhythm.

What would that sound like?

Rock n’ Roll Melody + Romantic Harmony + Medieval Form + Modern Tonal Rhythm.

What would that sound like?

OK! Let’s now add Eastern sounds into the mix (Asian systems’ sounds)

Classical melody + Chinese (opera) Harmony + Indian (subcontinent) Form + Atonal Rhythm.

What would this sound like??

Well there you are!!!!!

You can substitute any preferred popular or esoteric styles you wish for the ones above and you don’t have to use these 4 different elements either, just one or two, and on and on. The possibilities for exploration are endless. For those electronically inclined, gather or create the midi files you want and cut and paste as desired.

Try it out NOW! I only ask that you credit my method in your score/recording. Please feel free to send me your results!

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Extended vocal techniques in avant-garde
20-21st century classical music

Look at the vocal music of: Schoenberg, Berio, Crumb, Nono, Ligeti, Cage, Monk, and many others. Singers: Lucy Shelton, Cathy Berbarian many others.

You might divide these techniques into the following categories:

Theatrical-- adding motions, non vocal sounds, creating different characters, rituals, speaking, sprechstimme.

Visual techniques where sounds are not heard, only mouthed or seen, or signed--or supertitled--I use this in my song "Rain Chant" the final line "Far as man can see comes the rain, comes the rain with me" is only mouthed.

Sound effects ---body percussion-mouth sounds-screams- slurs, extreme registers etc.

Transfer--singers play the violin--cello players singing etc.

Electronics—vocoders, tapes, samples etc.

Crossover techniques –Multicultural: Tibetan Monks etc.

Mix-me-ups: Pop singers singing opera, Opera singers singing pop.

Motion Music -(minimalism) find a place to breathe!

Micro-tonal --John Eaton's 32 notes octave operas.

And of course, wide leaps between notes.. Perhaps I left some out?

Assignment: Create a song, or take a song already created, and develop 2 different scenarios for the song using ideas from the list above, invent some extended techniques to go with it. Don’t be afraid to completely deconstruct the musical materials.

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Phil’s Method of composing vocal music.

The addition of text to music of course changes everything.

I already mentioned how a purely instrumental composition can have textural elements added, as in Berlioz’s Fantastic Symphony or any "tone poem".. In that case a textural plot, or subtext is added to an instrumental composition in addition to its instrumental form, in this case a symphony. Even without a sung text, this text technique adds a second dimension to the music. Creating a song to a poem or any text adds a third dimension to composition because a text not only implies its own particular meaning but also implies a form as well. That is, songs can also be "tone poems". So using a sung text to compose a song as a single entity implies three musical dimensions.

There are two kinds of song cycles. In one type of cycle, or collection, a composer sets the work of a particular poet or poets, as individual songs and so does not intend a particular order to the performance. The songs can be sung in any combination or combined with other songs. This is a common performance practice. In the integrated song cycle the order of the songs must be maintained and unbroken, or the meaning is altered. The integrated song cycle, where a group or related songs created to be performed as a totality, in a particular order(or disorder), could then enter the fourth dimension of music. This is closely related to opera, yet staging an opera creates even more dimensions.

Consider the layers of meaning that can be addresses in an integrated song cycle. It is possible to be true to every text and every song setting, yet create a totality that has a completely different meaning from the original texts. I can build an indirect story form the poems themselves. For example, in my song cycle on a selection of H.D.’s poems Sea Garden—Sea Flowers . I create the story of Eddie Flowers continued survival from HIV. I also construct the order of the poems from morning to night. There is also a quotation of a cat walking on the piano as my cat Thisby liked to do. How is this different then the "ironic" concept? Well that too adds layers of meaning. For example a song about loving Mom and Dad—sung by Lizzie Borden! Irony works on your expectations----no expectations no irony Anyway ….

Practice: Find a series of poems to set to music about water then place the songs in an order by the size of the body of water; puddle, pond, lake, ocean etc. That is from small to large. Reverse the process.

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Geometry and Math

Geometric shapes have been in music since it was first notated, and perhaps even before, in the guise of tone painting. For example; waves, the sign of the cross, high/low, etc. are all pictures that can be drawn in music. Interest in mathematical approaches to music has been around for some time. The Schillinger Method of Music Composition of the early/middle 20th century takes this point of view in a traditional tonal melody and harmony context. After WWII, with its focus on pre-compositional, and/or non-tonal material, it became possible for more literal projection of geometry in music. For example, to hold a single note, or cluster, for 3 hours would project a straight line. European interest in compositional possibilities of timbre and density over melody and harmony create a perfect platform to use geometry, or shapes to create formal design. Consider your compositional space by registers (top high, bottom low) as a large blank rectangular page, pick a shape within; say a side view of a volkswagon bug. Consider that timbre and density can be thematic objects. Timbre; by making all other musical aspects indistinct except for timbre. For example, an orchestra's violin section can be divided into single parts, each playing its lowest 4 notes in a slightly different heterophonic rhythmic formation so only the timbre stands out. Density; by increasing the register coverage or altering the speed of the above formations (faster more dense), or by thinning , fewer notes say 3 or 2, or by thickening that is adding more notes, or by switching from chromatic to diatonic formations. Articulation and bowings can also create contrasting timbre.

Practice: Now using timbre densities and register draw a triangle three different ways; create the walls (connect the dotes) fill in the triangle itself, then combine the two. Try music painting a car your "bug" —it probable will be most dense in the center then gradually fade away (though the wheels will project into the lower registers).

Melody and the anti-romantic revolt the 1920's

We think of melody as –the leading part of a composition-, as the single top line of an instrumental composition, or the vocal line of a vocal work, supported by the accompaniment and the bass. The lack of melody -- the anti-romantic revolt is an important aspect of modernism of the 1920's. In Stravinsky’s early atonal style we find the use of discrete motive formations that retain their identities (imagine different birds singing at once, their individual songs retain their identity) even as the whole creates its own sound picture. Stravinsky's melodies do not lead as much as they seem to accumulate and then explode. This tendency continued in the work of Varese and Shapey. True, melody can be construed as a tonal technique, yet non tonal works can have melody as well.

A Radical approach -- ditch the Melody.

Some of Stravinsky’s techniques can be found in the early work of George Antheil. His first violin sonata is an entry into modernism by a work which omits melody (as well as tonal harmony). Don’t I mean omits traditional or tonal melody? No I don’t. Melody the leading part of a composition is omitted, and why not? Does a composition need melody to be successful? Generally, melodies are made up from small motives. These motives can remain as a unifier if the melody is removed. Why then, are these new angular formations not a new kind of melody? I would argue that the lack of contrast between the countrapuntal parts interferes with the idea that it becomes a new kind of melody. The parts here are interchangeable. Perhaps they are not contrapuntal parts at all, but what we now call layers. The nature of melody is that it is not restricted to any register but it is always contrasted against the other parts. A simple rule is if it sounds like a melody it probably is. Shenker argues for a two-part main texture, a bass and a melody with the difference between them being that the bass leaps and the melody moves stepwise.

Instead of melody in Antheil's “Sonata No. 1 for Violin” we find motor rhythm/ostinati, which are an expansion of the accompaniment figures. The ostinato (ground bass) is a contrapuntal variation technique however, it is not used in this manner by Antheil but is rather a discrete element that that keeps their identities and are combined and repeated “a la Stravinsky.” Of course motives can still operate as a unifying feature. By placing ostinoti with motor rhythms into all parts the melodic formations are denied.

Our notion of melody is from the Romantic era it is no wonder composers looked to older contrapuntal music to find a new way.

Without melody for delineation, parts can be defined by timbal differences, that is by the use of different instruments. A violin will sound different from a piano even if the materials are the same. This works well for instrumental music but always not always for the voice especially where textual understanding is important. Mr. Antheil's opera “Transatlantic” shows these weaknesses. The use of motor rhythms in the vocal parts limits the possibility of expression, and the poor scansion (mostly syllabic) not only makes the words impossible to understand but also sounds silly. (It makes one wonder why an opera company would commission a work from a composer with no vocal experience). Other composers such as Bach and Handel who use similar melodic formations for both vocal and instrument music do not have this problem. They carefully craft text settings incorporating melismas and the use of recitative for action.

Antheil's text setting in "Translantic" make the story incomprehensible. Is this what he intended?

Lessons: find five recent composers who don't use melody.

Compare L’histoire with Antheil's Violin Sonata No. 1. back to top

Of Opera and Musicals and New Music theater

The general definitions are these; opera is a sung story, and musicals are a plays (book) with songs. (Test yourself operas have musical interludes that can stand on their own, musicals have underscoring that heightens the spoken drama).

We might ask this; why does the most popular living “opera” composer, Philip Glass, compose neither of the above yet is acclaimed for writing opera? Mr. Glass's works, as well as Robert Wilson's, seem to be tableau with music rather than opera. In their works visually stunning imagery is featured rather than character interaction or understandable sung text. These stage pieces are similar to his work as a movie composer where Mr. Glass showed his ability to enhance visual images. “Let's go to the tableau” would seem an excellent marketing phrase. Why not call their works tableau? Why does Yanni claim his concerts represent the “new classical music”. It must be remembered that Mr. Glass himself calls his theater works operas and went to the trouble of renting the Metropolitan Opera in New York for his first production! Well, is there any advantage to calling something an “opera”? Lets see.

Opera, the magic word

Sgt. Peppers Beatles and George Martin was considered the first rock concept album. Though the concept was unclear and unstated, it featured the some of the best rock music at the time. Others imitated -- Spirit's 12 Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus and many others including the Who. The Who's Tommy preceded by their own “a quick one while he's away” was billed as the first rock “opera” (though I believe there was a rock n' roll Carmen that preceded it). Tommy featured the Who at the top of their game and some great songs and was very successful. Its true that Tommy had something of a story line but it was constrained by the conventions of rock music. (Rock music conventional? Did I say that?) If the operatic nature of Tommy was not particularly clear from the music or song lyrics the LINER NOTES EXPLAINED IT ALL!! This is the benchmark of what is opera. In the world of visual art, in museums today you will find recent works of art that seem to be afterthoughts to their written explanations by their curators. These explanations, liner notes, give the work of art its meaning and are far more important than the art itself. Any work of art is merely an example of something far more important -- the editorial. The stranger and more unintelligible the work is the more straight forward the editorial will be. For this reason the motion music composers are much closer in language to rock music than classical music.

The point??

Ok. The question is this; did the Who gain any cultural significance by calling Tommy an opera rather than a musical (which it eventually became) or a concept album? You bet they did!!! The term “opera” gave the Who a degree of serious credibility among music critics that art rock bands with classical training like ELP never had. Opera is a magic word -- tableau and concept album are not. Opera has history, institutions, fans, money, and an artistic cachet that tableau, concept album, or even music theater lack. back to top

Who composes opera??

One problem with music theater today is that career paths for composers have been institutionalized. A Ph.D. in composition from Yale does not compose musicals, they compose opera. (Apologies to former theorist Maury Yeston, and I suppose that Ph.D.'s in literature don't write trashy novels either?) So composers who are on the academic track and might have a talent for musicals don't try or wouldn't consider it. This is strange thinking because I for one can't think of any significant American operas composed recently, but I can think of many important and interesting musicals. Of course there is a great deal of difference compositionally between opera and “Broadway”. Its also true that the French, Les Six combined popular and serious styles before many of us were born. Sphor the serious composer is forgotten while Sir Arthur Sullivan's light comedies live on ( Sullivan's serious music is also gone).

OK opera composers are supported by different institutions (university, non profit) than theater composers (Broadway —profit) and at least for appearances opera composers are more high class than theater composers. Really??? Well for one thing its not true – for example has any recent American opera come close to Sondheim?

So what is up? It is this: you must be true to your style. As Menotti is. Ambition does not imply ability, and the knack of getting performances does not necessarily create artistic achievement. On the other hand, so called lighter music needs no apology.

We continue to live in a time with a plurality of musical styles, and in music nothing, in theory, is impossible. That said, unless the theater composers find the right medium of expression their works are destined to fail. Schoenberg and Berg have both entered the operatic repertory so even if you despise their music they can't be ignored. That is, their innovations of character and music can't be displaced. Younger composers ignore this to their peril. Yet many composers are commissioned to write operas precisely because they don't know or understand Schoenberg or Berg.

This answers another question: Why do so many recent operas sound like musicals, (bad musicals at that)? None of these kinds of works would exist if it were not for gate keepers and music directors who keep commissioning them. All of these half baked musicals marketed as operas would never survive a day on Broadway and they only exist because the public does not directly pay for their commission,creation, and inception. At best, these administrators and composers believe that their job is too bring in the audiences, not to challenge them -- “make 'em happy.” Familiar is what they desire, even at BAM where the same pieces and composers are played year after year. At worst, they create and dispense power, reward friends, and create alliances so mediocrity is ensured. Great opera would be beyond their control.

New Music theater

Many folks these days also draw a distinction between Opera, Musical Theater and New Music Theater. Generally, Opera is tradition based ( meaning based on other Operas) and is performed in Opera Houses. Music theater is performed on Broadway and off, and off-off Broadway. For New Music Theater it ain't necessarily so. Anything can go and be performed anywhere. Composers and creators of NMT can come from any style or tradition not just musical. See my musicus simplisticus lesson. It can also be a reaction to the difficulty of getting an “opera” performed. Look up the Once Group and the early days of the Minnesota Opera. Many people who compose New Music Theater call them operas. This is either because they are not familiar with the terminology or for marketing purposes.

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Harmony and Content

Or why recent tonal operas fail

Opera is not for the facile anymore. If your harmonic language is based on popular music and your presentation is melody and (ostinoto) accompaniment, your attempts at opera will fail. The work will sound like a musical with an excuse. Dramatic content requires more then a lot of “melody” with a little dissonance to spice up the tense parts. These half baked musicals would never survive a day on Broadway. You say, “What about Richard Strauss?” Though most composers write one work at a time it is a fallacy to say only the last compositions count. Strauss had knowledge of Schoenberg and Berg and he made his own choices. Without Electra there is no Four Last Songs and not without Mahler either). You can argue the importance of Bernstein's “serious” works but which of his music is most loved? Or performed? The exception to this is George Gershwin. A pop musician who composed “serious” music as well. His opera, Porgy and Bess, had the kind of failure (124 performances) for which every composer I know would die. It was called a failure at the time, by Virgil Thomson and others, but it still gets quite a lot of performances (more then Mr. Thomson). Gershwin was on to something but the work is at its heart a musical as the songs overwhelm everything else. Then again why can't a musical can be just as important as an opera anyway ? So, if your musical language is based on Rodgers and Hammerstein, musicals are your best bet.

10 rules for being a successful opera composers

1)get the commission

2) get the commission

3)get the commission

4)get the commission

5)get the commission

6)get the commission

7)get the commission

8,get the commission

9) get the commission

10) get another commission

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It seems on the above paragraphs that I'm getting to some point or other. Perhaps it is this. It is very likely that operas judged artistic failures will still be seen as successes. How can this be? Today it is so difficult to get a work produced and presented to the public by a major or minor company that the performance in itself is a success. That is undeniably true. Further, once you are part of the system, your name will come up again, failure or not. So it's easier to get your second work done then your first even if the first one fails. Of course who judges the work a failure is important too.

Also, something else comes to mind. In many of the operas out today the music comes last. It is the least important part of the show. The job of the music is not to get in the way of the text, author, or concept. Or to recycle the familiar, the popular, or the trite.

On Opera Librettos:

Literature is too big a subject for this page so I offer the following information. The opera libretto is a form of literature that has fallen from its once (revered) position in the art world. At one time Wagner publish his librettos separately form his music and they had public readings to great acclaim (though they are not so prized today) . Many poets of past also wrote opera librettos. The stage play and the opera libretto were very similar entities but most are forgotten. It is only through the music that most operas are remembered, with the exception of Faust. Opera was created, or reinvented by a group of Italian music lovers, the Florentine Cameratta, who knew that Ancient Greek drama was sung, not spoken. They developed a new style of singing (sing-speech) called parlando, what later became recitative. The parlando would allow singers to become characters who would act while they sang.

• On the practical side a libretto has 2 parts the scenario and the text.

• A libretto can be original though they are mostly adaptations of other works or based on fairy tales, folklore, etc.

• The scenario is about the scenes, characters and what will happen in each scene.

• The text is what the characters and the chorus will actually sing.

• "Senarization" is common to all literature including plays, screenplays and musicals. There are film directors who only work with scenarios as they have their actors improvise the actual text. (i.e. Topsey Turvy). This could work in opera as well it worked on Broadway with a Chorus Line.

• The traditional operatic text rhymes just as the poetry of that time did and as our popular music still does.

The conventional approach to opera is to adapt a well known story, keep some of the plot, add or condense as needed. The scenario can stay close to the original but the singing text is usually altered.- as it must rhyme -tends to change a lot. Wagner changed the end of Lohengrin. He has Elisabeth die for dramatic effect and to create closure. Stories are often adapted for opera. Many of these stories and plays are mere trifles so we hardly care if they are changed. Usually the change and the addition of music is for the better. We consider a libretto good when it keeps the spark of the original story alive. Consider the many operatic versions of Faust and Shakespeare. There was a time, and a style, of opera when their wasn't much interest in the story at all, just in the Olympic nature of the power and coloratura of the singers. In this case the Opera just had to have Arias express a single strong emotion and have plenty of open vowels. Modernist writers: Joyce, Pound, Hemingway, Steinbeck, to name a few, create new challenges for opera creation. Their text is so important and individual that to adapt it in a convention way does violence to the writers art. The Grapes of Wrath made a fine film yet all of the prose was cut out, the essence that made it unique as a work of art.

How to Change Minds

Many think that if you want to change minds in a positive way you need familiar music with a strong accompanying message. To me thats just preaching to the choir. If you want to change peoples minds change their ears too. Prejudice must also be confronted sonicly.

Self criticism or how do I make myself a better composer ?

A question of accompaniment

One of the problems we face as composers is that sometimes our technical ability as performers too strongly informs our composition. In the realm of song writing todays accompaniments tend to be very uniform in nature that is very similar. This is because song writers, even successful ones, are not encouraged to create anything more then a melody and a simple chord accompaniment. One reason for this is that advent of the professional studio musicians and producers who can transform bare bones lead sheets into a fully arranged and accompanied songs. It is the studio musicians job is to improvise, read charts (or some of both) to create a finished musical accompaniment to a song in the desired style. The producer picks the musicians or creates the arrangement or remix themselves using electronic instruments and computers etc.

In the theater, there is a precedence for the composer not composing their own accompaniments That is, being separate from the arranger. Because of time, composers rarely orchestrated their own works for the stage (even Bernstein), so accompaniments were to some extent the work of others. This used to be the job of orchestrators and arrangers. As this is no longer the case it should not be surprising that song accompaniments have become much less interesting, especially if one does not have access to studio musicians.

Counter melody and the “fill”

Besides basic style production which includes Instrumentation, vocals and backup vocals, counter melodies and fills are what arrangements are all about. Popular music at this time doesn't use counter melodies all that often except for classical, some Broadway, and the so called “art rock” 1970's 1980's. A counter melody can also be a strong riff or ostinoto, separate from the bass or melody that repeats throughout a song. The guitar part in the Stones “Satisfaction” for example. All songs have fills of one kind or another, bass, drum, keyboard, guitar etc. Fills usually lead to downbeats and go with the rhythm. If a fill is too constant and breaks the rhythm it is too busy. The classic example of the too busy bass is the bass line of Melonie's “Candles in the rain.” On the other hand one might ask can a hit song be wrong? Listen for the minor bass fills against major chords in Bette Midlers Friends. Anyway, Jack Bruce and Paul McCartney were experts at filling, placing major 9nths and 6ths just right. Ringo Starr's drum fills are widely imitated and sampled. Florid melizmas are the character of vocal fills. Too many fills of the same type can get dull in a hurry. Listen widely, chose well.

The Transition

Nothing is more the purview of a composer then the transition.

Though melody and accompaniment or common to all musical styles, the transition is not. It does not lend itself easily to inspiration even though Brahms transitions can be the most beautiful sounding part of his work. A transition is a musical construction that is designed to fit between sections so that the change between them is smooth. They can be very short or a section to itself.

Songwriters don't need them, music theater types tend to make them very short and use harmony almost exclusively. In theater stage action effects time so sometimes a transposition or key change will do.

Since most compositions are different each transition will also depend on the materials at hand. The simplest way would be to use some of the old section's musical materials, transformed, to overlap into the transition and then into the new section. This creates continuity. In vocal music transitions can also depend on the text or the vocal form; aria, song, ABA etc. In instrumental music it is all design.

How are fills and transitions different?

One can certainly hear some “fills” in Mozart. It is not a new idea to embellish a composition with attractive details. These ideas are related in that both the fill and the transition are composed, both are used between sections. But the fill only effects an instrument or two and the transition effects everything. Also, the fill is usually created by somebody other then you.

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Creative or resourceful?

Again and again I read and hear about the need for more “creativity.” How to teach it etc.

Yet on closer look I find that it is not creativity that is desired at all (as creative answers are always difficult or seemingly wrong) but merely resourcefulness. Being resourceful is to be able to synthesize a correct understandable answer to a problem from knowledge and experience. To be creative is to answer correctly, or partially, a problem that has not yet been asked and may not as of yet not be understood. Its no wonder that creative people are not valued. For example, it was creative for the McDonald brothers to invent their fast food restaurant. They were despised by Ray Kroc, who with resourcefulnesses created an empire through them. Creative marketing is not creativity. Creative people invent institutions resourceful people run them. Since we live in a capitalist society a few words on the subject of business may be revealing.

Investors (curators, impresarios) can make the rules.

Since all artists must market themselves one way or another projecting personal “creativity” is a good thing. Yet, being artistically creative can be bad for business because creativity doesn't always fit the desired profile. Since Vincent Van Gogh is the most valuable artist around, Investors go looking for anyone who might fit his artistic profile. Since his art did not sell in own his day and he was self destructive and acted out, this also becomes part of the required profile. Do we judge books by their cover or what? Ironically, this search tends to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. It creates a lot of career pressure that Van Gogh never had. Art take time to develop and nurture.

For some, creativity in business seems to be nothing more than finding new ways to game the system. For example; Enron. So it seems odd then that business people still persist in forcing a business model on the public schools (which are never used in the private schools that their own children attend).

Resourcefulness is by its very nature safe, creativity can be dangerous.

Its just as true for the arts and the so called “creative” fields. Much work is now being done to remove creativity from the teaching profession, and in the name of creativity itself! Consider the arts. The fact that a profession is “creative” does not automatically make its practitioners so. One would think that all professional composers were creative people. Actually, it depends on the question that a particular composition is supposed to answer. A commission is a question. A composition is the answer to that question. What is the answer? Is it resourceful or creative? Creative visionaries like Varese and Shapey are idolized and then ignored. Resourcefulnesses becomes the currency of the day when familiar answers are the only ones requested and familiar answers the only ones given. You can be artistically unique as long as your part of the team and you don't interfere with comfort zones. That is, as long as your not unique. Join the club people! As Emily Peck once wrote; “Everyone parrots be yourself be yourself, what is this precious self anyway?”

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The inner game of Orchestration

First:

Read Berlioz's book --but with his own examples not Strauss.

For a general study any recent orchestration book will do.

If you want to know about today's general outlook about the whys and wherefores read Adam Carse's book. Mr. Carse gives you all the orchestrational old wifes tales; Brahms bad, Wagner good, the French, bizarre etc. etc. It never occurs to him that orchestrating for opera might be different then for symphony.

The rhetoric of orchestral writing is different than others genres

First compare how accompaniments are notated (orchestrated) in the piano sonatas, string quartets and symphonies, by the same composers. Mozart for example frequently uses Alberti bass in his piano sonatas but very infrequently, if ever in his symphonies. Also examine different musical eras to see the changes in instrument techniques.

Consider the differences between heterophany and doubling. Especially true if you are interested in spectral composition. Some times one must construct discreet parts out of contrapuntal lines to create fullness and texture. This is also a good way to avoid the hard edge caused by too many unison doublings.

Instruments and their Persona

The use and techniques of instruments have changed over time but what remains is this:

Instruments also represent persona--a trumpet is not just an instrument but also a character that plays a role of trumpet in the orchestra. The trumpet is always in the lead and is always a solo even when it does harmony. For the trumpet, as in all the instruments, you can orchestrate for type or against type but the "type" is there no matter what. All players and instruments have a slightly different history and a tradition. Learn this. Would a first violin naturally be more musically assertive than a second violin or a viola? OK, before I feed you too many stereotypes that might be wrong remember --these are things you must discover on your own through listening and study so you can develop your own approach.

Register can have a strong effect on an instruments persona. Extreme notes on any instrument change its character and its strength. The flute can be more pervasive as it get higher in pitch, not the oboe. Some instruments have more than one persona. The piano, for example, is the instrument with the most persona, it can accompany, be a soloist, or blend with other instruments in many different ways. I will discuss the laptop a little later.

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Art and Technology

The problem with great art is that it is sometimes hard to understand and not widely advertised, if at all. On the other hand technology is
ubiquitous. It is constantly making news and becoming part of our lives.
To be technical; it is the bus and the signal as well, that is, it
advertises itself. The problem is that many people mistake a technological
advance for an artistic one. Similar to my ideas about language and music
(fewer people understand music then understand texts for example. Everyone
is familiar with technology and if they don't exactly understand every
aspect of it, they still use it as tools. As a culture we are obsessed
with technology to give an edge to keep up with the Joneses etc. So it
seems that art and technology is a natural combination. Of course if we consider
the cell phone-its tendency to disrupt live concerts and invade other
peoples spaces (that's half the fun I think),. It promises instant contact, shows that we
are never alone and we don't have to plan. To shop without a cell phone is
so 20th century. The cell phone is so wonderful that we forget that you can't
understand your bill. Also, having an ipod is cool and all that, but it
does not imply taste. We can now create virtual albums of music but then is
all popular music just made of hits?

Technowise popular music has been concerned with the new sound since
the 1950's . Thats also when popular music started to push classical music off the map.
In this case the new sound also made commercial music cheaper to produce.

Was this a goal or a by-product? Talent is expensive (as are orchestras) so generic performers who can be made to sound great are cheaper and easy to replace.

Technology has a dirty secret; that its ease of use has a cost and those
costs remain hidden. Its not just the implied lowering of standards. Hi tech can
win a war but not the peace. That takes people.

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Musicus Simplisticus

Represents a kind of composition that requires an avoidance of any standard musical compositional materials. The word "traditional" musical materials is the preferred term used by these composers themselves and is in general use, but it is not quite correct. This is because major elements of traditional composition remain. It is based on an interpenetration of arts techniques. In this case theater and dance into music. It is related to music concrete-- an early electronic tape technique where different natural sounds are accumulated (recorded and spliced) to create a composition, rather then just notes and pitches. Notes and pitches are not excluded. Simple consonance is preferred but dissonance, mostly as sound effects, is not excluded. One kind find these and related techniques in “performance art” and also in “noncom” rock music.

Materials

Compositions are generally created from simple created sounds and vocal improvisations on a topic or buzz word. Love, happy, sad, morning etc. -- Though unusual for musicians, this is a standard theater school technique for opening up. Movement can be used exactly the same way. It typically involves group collaborations. Specifically, this is because a single person can only come up with maybe 5 or six different ways to express a single idea, use say 10 people and you have 60 ideas to chose from. Time is also an issue on when putting a collaboration together for performance.

There may be text or not, but the words do not have to make sense, in fact the phonemes are better released from any context other then their sounds. That way the sounds can be connected to any concept. It is the sounds or vocalizations that must be shaped to describe feelings or an idea. It is easier to mold the incomprehensible otherwise its a “reading” of material. If a real text is used it is usually rendered down to short catch phrases to make it subservient to the overall concept. Similar to my concept of textual context.

Programs

This can be combined with sound processing, loops etc. via a laptop using various programs such as Ableton live (check out the free demo): It could be commercial dance beats or just sonic explorations.

Live:

http://www.ableton.com/index.php?main=downloads

Reason:

http://www.propellerheads.se/

or many listing:

http://www.freebyte.com/music/#free_notation

The site below has to too many different programs to count (but watch out for the very annoying ads and pop ups) -

http://www.hitsquad.com/smm/

What does the composer(s) do?

The composer puts the collaborations together and in a form. They map out the topics and decide what realized ideas will be used and in what order to place them. Who they pick to be their performers is also important, as this can set the style of the music. In the performance, it is possible to have collaborations and not use any performer at all on stage by using prerecording, or video. For example, you could “sample” sounds beforehand and then the performance is the mix in “real time”. You can also let your collaborators provide the material and then you can perform the composition yourself. Or you can just direct the performers. It is important that the proper contracts be signed etc. Since many performers want experience it will be easy to find collaborators who will let you run the show and use their ideas.

In some way this kind of composition is most controlling of all. It requires performers not just to give their time and talent but their inner selves as well. Also, this kind of performance requires extensive rehearsals as they must be choreographed down to the last detail (and in real time) usually without any supporting performance notations.

In musicus simplisticus the simplicity is strength and the weakness Since collaborators tend to constantly change the material is always the first and the freshest concepts--a certain sameness will occur that is why topics must change all the time. On the other hand as we all have shared ideas about certain feelings- a lack of professionalism or a lack of skill is no barrier to providing material to make successful compositions.

Since these compositions represent a first step into the unknown, these materials though abstract are also very easy to understand. Once one moves into incomprehensibility, where its just a matter of soft or hard sounds, what they mean as an experience is dependent on the composer and the experience of the listener. If one starts with incomprehensibility its meaning is also just a matter of the composers definition. I do worry about the tendency to so strongly identify a composition with a political idea or concept that one does not know whether the political idea or the composition is being experienced or responded too.

This kind of activity can have several different results. For example; the creation of theater groups, performance groups, or bands. This is where the collaborators build on their experiences. However, some chose to go it alone. In this case the leader (the sound wrangler) builds up their own personal portfolio of others experiences. In that case there must be high turnover of corroborators and frequent travel since since freshness requires new people every time. I suppose some folks might object to being “used”. Here increased musical knowledge does not help the “wrangler,” but expertise, as in all arts, is still the point. Rather, they are experts at: production, organization, editing, directing, stagecraft, choreography, eliciting,controlling, choosing, and sometimes entrepreneurship.

Practice

Get some friends together; using sound and movement describe “the worlds
most boring music teacher”--take turns (each friend must be in charge of the design once) putting together the vignettes. If you feel you must add political content make it; “the worlds most boring fascist music teacher.”

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Gesture composition

A precursor to Musicus Simplisticus is gesture Composition.

Gesture composition is a subset of the Cageian world, which uses alternative notations to create musical works. This type of composition is a cross-over technique borrowing from theatrical stage directions and visuals, dance choreography and timing, visual arts etc.

Gesture composers confront the "tyranny" of music notation and seek new ways to interpret the main building blocks of music - harmony, rhythm and melody. This explains their interest in extended techniques. They also question the implied relationship of "composer" to "performer" where the "force" of notation tells the performer exactly what to do. This leads to a music, though still notated, that is "improvisational."

There is a type of gesture composition I call “sound wrangling” where the composer arranges sound samples, either from a created pallet or improvised, live and/or recorded, created by the performers. Even in visual art the “curator” is now given equal billing with the “artist” whose works they arrange around a space.

Gesture composition and free improvisation

Much of this notated, composed music focuses on extended techniques, which oddly enough is also the focus of “free jazz.” (please note: I will call this music free jazz, or free improvisation for this article. I am a player not an academician so my language may be out of date. This page is for all to read and the use of specific jargon would be counter-productive ) The difference: free jazz is improvised, and gesture composition is composed. Overlaps between these two different types of music frequently occur. For example, even in free jazz there are composed compositions, not all of free jazz is improvised. Gesture music has a wide range of composer-player relationships, that is the amount of control bestowed by the composer on the performers. This can leave a lot of music up to the performers.

Improvisation, is of the moment, composition is of reflection. Gesture composers try to have both by giving up some control as composers. Free jazz comes to its gestures by emotion and listening, and by its history. For me, great free improvisation has the same effect as a great combo or chamber music, orchestra or jazz band without a text. It also questions the various roles and personas of the instruments and the players themselves. As you see both points of view have very similar aims but different departure points. “Jazz” builds on its history, “Gesture”, though now old enough to have its own traditions, is a re-invention.

How did gesture composers become free improvisers?

Perhaps it happened like this; noticing the vitality of the free jazz scene it did not take long for gesture composers to discover their similarity with free jazz. This led them to codify their gestures. Using their own gestures and others they created teaching methods and curriculum so that a “free improviser” could be created with training without any experience with the outside world of improvised music.

In a sense “free jazz” is reversed engineered by gesture composers.

Perhaps it was just part of the so-called uptown/downtown split, since both free jazz and gesture music would be labeled “downtown”. (Thats where I played "free jazz", but I did not meet any gesture composers during my active years in NYC).

Differences remain. The most important difference between gesture composition and free improvisation is in the form of the works. “Free Improvisation” uses a beginning, middle, and end, an “Arch form, or an “Aural” form,” gesture composition may or may not. Also in free improvisation the music comes first, in gesture music anything goes. Music may be part of a multimedia presentation and not the center of the experience.

From a purely musical point of view, Gesture composition’s avoidance of formal concepts invariably creates a weaker musical tapestry. This can be augmented by visuals and other multimedia, but it also relegates music to a small cog in the wheel of something more important: “concept”.

In a purely musical terms these works, unlike improvisations, will tend to go on too long. Not because they are bad or slow works, but because a composed gesture that would seem aurally calling for, or, creating closure is ignored as specified by the composer, or concept, and we lose interest in the music. In "free improvisation" a gesture for closure is usually followed by all.

For some gesture composers the concept is primary as the music is only a means to an end.

Oopsey a problem, and a question of authenticity.

A certain resentment occurs when “jazz” folks who have worked all their lives at a technique suddenly find that their sound has been duplicated by “gesture” folks with whom they have not associated. Questions of race and also privilege occur because of color and the advantage of being part of the “academy.” At this point in time the academic study of music can encompass so many different possibilities that almost any stylistic approach could be called as a pejorative; academic.

There is also the issue of gender as many gesture composers are women. On that point the academy has been much more supportive, to my knowledge, than the public music world. There is also questions of Nationalism, interest and self interest, and “outside,” non-musical interests. There are also those who see music as a basis for social reform. Then we must ask who's reform are we speaking of?

The following is also true: most gesture composers are associated with academia, and most improvisers are not. (Perhaps I should say were not). In a University setting one also eliminates the risk or rewards of discovery, rejection and its social implications. There are those who wonder whether the academy is preserving a style of music or replacing it with something else. The Academy might argue that its influence on the public arts scene is at best limited, yet one finds that almost all of the performance spaces for this type of music are University affiliated.

I defer on all questions of race to George Lewis and the AACM.

I defer on all questions of gender to? I'm not sure yet. Please E-mail me!

True, many “free jazz” musicians are now professors and doing excellent work, yet questions remain as to where these disjunctions will lead.

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The WALL OF SOUND WOS Effect.

The Wall of sound is usually associated with the work of John Cage and the gesture composers, but as Robert Morgan's description of "wallpaper music" implies one finds many examples including; serial, electronic works, Motion music, drones, cross-over exotica, electronica, the once group, Musicus Simplisticus, and in my own Man and Machine series. Though classical types use the WOS as a texture within a larger work, many others use it as the entire work.

Perhaps first experienced in Bruckner's 9th symphony third movement climax, the WOS can be understood as a point of complete musical incomprehensibility. So much musical information at once harmony, counterpoint, and volume, that the parts become indistinct and blend into a WOS. On the other hand Schoenberg's "Colors..," from his Five Pieces for Orchestra, is another example in a quieter context. WOS is not always about power, but it is about musical parts being equal and indistinct. WOS can also be achieved with a single instrument as a drone.

In vocal music a similar approach is to reduce all text to phonemes, words out of sequence, or several speakers/singers at once, or to have instruments unbalance (cover) the vocal sounds. It is interesting to note that the human voice (with words) has a tendency to predominate any texture. Though related to and confluent with "non-linear" technique, referring to the fact that a "story" may not have a sequential beginning, middle or an end, I would call this textual incomprehensibility or TI when the "story" can not be understood by the performance alone. Like recent visual arts it needs the "editorial" and in plain language to explain it.

The fact is that WOS and TI are not difficult techniques, This is in part because electronics and commercial recording software is available on every MAC. An electric guitar left in front of an amp turned on high will cause feed back without the need for it to be actually played -- bingo WOS. Take any text and reduce it to phonemes and -- bingo TI Also, WOS, even with very different approaches, have similar results because the ear only notices the big picture: Is it loud, Is it soft, Is it a drone, etc.

The Sound Artist

Many of these techniques are so easy to achieve (They can even be found objects.) that a whole new category of artists has arisen: the "sound artist", "multimedia artist" etc. I have mentioned the problems that arise over issues of ownership of a style and/or a sound; for example: free jazz/gesture. Similar problems arise between the trained and untrained composers. On a closer look we see that the training issue is a red herring. It is really a subject of what "kind" of training, because sound artists and visual artists who primarily use text as a medium are in fact extremely trained just not in music or in creative writing. The artists learn their craft at arts schools. .

Art Looks Ahead, Music Looks Back

Though both the art and music worlds are beset with trends, the sound artists, multimedia, textual, and instillation artists are mainstream for the art world. In the America classical music scene mainstream new work is "who will be the new Bernstein". That is; the art world does look ahead for new mediums, the classical American music world looks back to maintain. Music theater and opera straddles both outlooks as it includes music and visual arts. Preset outlooks can be stifling. Breaking out of the mold is difficult for both worlds. In both cases a great deal of excellence and importance that does not fit in to this specified mold is overlooked. For example, Varese is a composer who appeals across both worlds but was overlooked by music history. If we consider the many differences between art and music; the orchestra is a living thing, and a gallery is just an empty space. Also, consider the different relationships of "patrons" to the different arts. You can own a painting-you can't own Beethoven. This subject perhaps needs its own lesson.

Speaking of Varese, what of electronic music? The discipline of electronic music should be a way to bridge this gap between the trained art world and the trained music world. Yet one finds that the "off the shelf-ers" [users of commercial software] and the commercial DJ's [experienced practitioners] have done an end run on schooled electronic composers as well. In a result oriented world where money=power no one cares if you wrote your own software. In fact those who composed for the 4X at IRCAM now find that their music is now unplayable because this machine no longer exists. They can still play their old recordings if they made them.

Film Music

I think the title says it all; in film the “music” does not come first. This is why film music was held in such low esteem by my, and past generations. When I talk about film music I mean the melodrama or what is also called “under scoring” in the theater. This is the art of heightening a scene with music. Though theatrical, the melodrama is primarily an instrumental form. When film music makes its way into concert music its usually for composed sections that have no dialog (are silent). Here the music can at least hold half the interest or more for example; Elmer Bernstein's “The Magnificent Seven”. For the techniques of film composing I would direct you to David Amram's autobiography “Vibrations”. www.davidamram.com

Opera and Film

Operatic gate keepers have of late have turned to pop musicians and movie composer to create works. Film composers have financial success and glamor if not the high profile household name of the pop composers. The challenge for the film folks is that Opera, unlike the melodrama, is not an instrumental form. Opera is not just about the theatrical voice and its expressive abilities its also about the characters. The history of opera is filled with composers who specialized in this form as they knew how to do this. Brahms, who composed lovely songs did not compose opera. Wagner's symphonic works are a question and his songs are few and very operatic. Composing for the theatrical voice takes experience and practice. On the other hand each successful opera composer also created their own distinct vocal sound and type. Of all the recent opera and concert work I have heard this fact seems to be the most neglected. The history of music is not standing still. Many recent and older “advanced” composers take the Puccini voice as the operatic voice of choice even though their accompaniments never have the same kind of line-only the voice has it. The voice then sounds as a fish out of water never quite integrating into the texture. This perhaps has more to do with the composers access to important singers then to the composition of opera. Also, I would not consider the transfer of popular, miked, singing into opera as the same kind of originality unless the microphone did something other than amplify or use the voice as a purely instrumental object.

Formally speaking Opera, unlike Film or Broadway requires some musical integration, which film does not, and not just reprises at that.

Another difference between instrumental composition and film music is that in instrumental music the form organically flows from the mind of the composer. Film music must be designed contextually to illustrate the visuals, so its form must outline the action.

For example; an angry man walks 10 paces then turns to look in a window.

The music also depends on how fast he is walking and what he might see.

Whether the changes in the action are musically motivated or not does not matter-the action must be highlighted. In fact an organic approach would not work in film as it would distract from the images. So film music is based on musical gestures rather than on organic materials. There can also be wide time separations of these gestural fragments. This is why most of the film music you hear is re-arranged for concert performance.

Actually, there are many melodramas from the 30's and 40's that could be turned into operas simply by turning the dialog into melody or patter that would fit into the underscored music. Some work would have to be done to expand the composed score.

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Music Drama

One of the considerations for composers and librettists is this; how are ideas revealed in Opera?

To illustrate the various possibilities lets consider a simple situation. Our young soprano has just discovered that her zipper is broken (which zipper I leave to you). We can reveal this to the audience in any the following ways, all of which can be combined with each other.

She may know but the audience may not

She may not know but the audience may.

She may not know but the other characters may.

She may know but --oh forget it.

1)vocal and text

Our soprano sings "my zipper is breaking, but not my heart"

Another character sings "your zipper is broken, but not your heart"

The Chorus sings "Her zipper is breaking, but not her heart"

2)visual

Our Soprano acts out or mimes a broken zipper as noted in the stage directions, or another character can act out noticing her zipper... etc.

or

We see the dastardly Baritone put crazy glue in her zipper.

3)Music, aural

A musical cue tone paints or describes the zipper breaking.

A stuttering Ratchet would do quite nicely.

or

A musical cue tone paints or describes her reaction to her zipper breaking.

4)text

The super titles reveal that our soprano's zipper is broken.

5)Action

The broken zipper is revealed while our soprano is focused on something else.

a)As our soprano runs towards her hero her dress gets caught yet she doesn't notice this.

b)As our soprano sings her song of love she is blissfully unaware that her betrothed is trying to take liberties. She is saved as her zipper is stuck!

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PhilFried.com is up--sort of

2008-11-07T16:03:00.000-06:00

Well its about time--I don't have any--so all the old links and pics are gone. I'll have this sorted out in no time!

A Note--the links from aol will not work-sorry

2008-10-15T17:51:00.000-05:00

In a few days most of my aol links will shut down--I will reset them manually of course-but if you scroll down its all here.

Love Phil