two much theater?

In the past month, I've had two theatrical works premiered to packed houses. The Story, Part 1: Alec and Grugh, ran during InTENsity 2.0, produced by Frank Higgins and Tony Bernal. Four of the five nights were sold out (and the other night had 2 open seats. So close!).

And this past Thursday and Friday, Till Coffee Do Us Part, ran. The evening, Rites of Being, was produced by Hunter Long and Black House Collective, and created in collaboration with Kansas City Electronic Music and Arts Alliance. Alison Heryer designed most everything, and Lisa Cordes gave her expert talents as the stage director of all six operas.

There was also some crazy guy that started voguing toward the end of Friday night...He was up on a podium and waved his arms like a damn fool. He did it because whenever he moved his arms, he heard music...and he likes music.

Yes, I was the foolish man.

Did anyone laugh at my title? It's a pun. Get it...Two shows? Two much theater?

These are the jokes people.

And what an experience all this was. I'm many years removed from my theater days. I did the community theater bit for...well, a hella long time. I played in some pits, and did a minor acting role for in undergrad. Worked for a production company, but didn't do much theater work while out East...Until Cake went up, and I was suddenly tossed back into theater.

Then four years pass, and I'm tossed back in again. People always seem amazed to know that I've been on stage since...8? 9? Can't remember...Anyway, a long freakin' time. My first credit as a lighting tech was when I was 12 (designed half the show. Poorly, i might add...but it got done!). My first directing credit was a children's production when I was in HS. I followed that up with directing Pippin, then directing 2 chamber operas for RTB's inaugural Opera Shorts program. I also waved my arms around then, leading several rehearsals when our conductor wasn't around.

Should have taken that "assistant conductor" credit. But I was already "Tech Director, Stage Director, Composer."

Anyway...Yeah, I've done a lot of theater...

But I've never had two shows run so close together. I've never had to flit from a rehearsal of one show to a performance of another. I've never had a show I've solely written the words to on stage. Cake was a collaboration with Eileen Wiedbrauk. Her story, and we sent the libretto back and forth (with a lot of "I have no idea what I'm doing..." "I don't know either..." "Hm, well...it's probably fine.").

So, my words, on stage. That was an interesting experience. The actors never stopped surprising me--in both shows, I laughed several times...which is hella awkward as you're prepping a to cue in the pit, and the actor does something so ridiculous you HAVE to laugh.

There's nothing in this world more magical than live theater. I know, I'm a musician, I should say "there's nothing more magical than a symphony," or something like that. But I'd be lying. There's something about the human voice, about seeing humans interact and draw you into the performance. There's something much more concrete. Music is abstract. Even when moving into more concrete worlds (using obvious quotation that will have cultural contexts, using real world sounds, etc.), music is always a step removed from the concrete image due to what's around it. (Does thunder have the same meaning when surrounded by rain, as it does when it's surrounded by gunfire without rain? a discussion for another time.)

But theater captures us in a snapshot of time. We see events unfold in front of us, and we are either drawn in, or kept at arms length as observers to judge the action (Oh Brecht...). I love me some Brecht, and when he's at his best, he's tricked himself and he's brought you into at least one character, while keeping the problem at arms length (Rise and Fall of the City of Mahoganny is the perfect example to me).

I wouldn't trade this experience for the world. It's not what I do professionally. I'm no actor. My directing is middling, at best. Same goes with my design. It's better for the world if I never sing again. And while I've enjoyed writing words, and think I'm pretty good at it, I'm best at writing music.

So, I'll continue to do that, and do it well. And keep your eyes open for opera number 3!

There's never too much theater in this world.

blah

I've been feeling a bit down this week. It happens. I go through cycles just like everyone else. My current diet/level of physical activity has definitely helped me from any deep plunges lately. Plus, a nice string of good luck. Whoever out there that is trying to make my life a bit better, thank you greatly.

The biggest problem i have when i hit these funks is writing music. Basically, i'll stare at a page, unable to come up with anything. I'll run through some motions (write a line, do its transpositions, inversions, some rotational aspects, etc) and still nothing. So, i'll pop on some "tv on the internet" (hulu, or some illegal sites) and watch that for awhile. come back and try the writing thing again. then i'll throw on some music, make some sort of elaborate feeding session, try a new recipe, something like that. When i'm finished cooking and ready to eat, i'll watch another episode of whatever show i was watching before, or maybe toss on a movie. Last night, that movie was Blues Brothers. awesome. still, nothing.


Yesterday, i also tossed in driving to the mall and checking out shoe stores and trying to find a radio shack. shoes for my feet and a single stage power conditioner, outlet box, and any cable/clamps i might need to make a home-made power conditioner. Unfortunately, i failed on both accounts. Shoe shopping always sucks cause no one seems to have what i want. Vans, skater shoes, relatively plain (no skulls, no crazy colours). Colour is negotiable however, i prefer black on black (partly for professional reasons).

Anyway, i hopped on here this morning thinking i would do a nice long article on "The Death of Hearing" based upon 1)headphone listening levels, 2)accurate broadcast of music through any medium (headphones, speakers, radio. all these things change the sound. not to mention things like mic choice, mixing ability, etc). 3) the over compensation of mixers attempting to make a product that sounds alright over these mediums 4) the availability of media destroying live acoustic performances (even those coloured by PA systems), and 5) the lame attacks by the record industry to stave off sharing of music, and continuing to view the most important product created as the CD (or the iTunes mp4a up for sale.) 6) the degradation of media quality for file size-- a simple trade-off but one that people don't always realize is a bad thing, in some ways.

But, i don't feel like fleshing it out. I was actually going to flesh it out with proper citations from credible sources and send it off for a conference...however, i just don't feel like it now. Heh. yep, its the funk. I think washing my sheets would help. I'll do that today. I had meant to early in the week but got distracted. clean sheets is a joyous thing.

On that note, i'm going to shower, walk to a coffee shop with compy, maybe do some work there. Not sure i'd really need compy for this mission, but i love him so. lol. anyway, catch y'all later

oh yeah, bought my plane tickets to NYC for Electronic Music New York's International Electro-Acoustic Music Festival. I'm on the "emerging composers" concert on Aprils 13th, Levenson Recital Hall, 7pm. lol. Hopefully i can get moved up with the big boys soon. not that i'm really as good as they are, it'd just look better on the CV. lol

and then it turned into the Shroud of Turin

Ok, so before Advanced Analysis today, i was talking to a compatriot about the analysis homework. We are analyzing a Schoenberg String Quartet, going through, finding the different row forms and their meanings. Our professor had asked the class to look at a few measures, identify what forms of the row were used and why Schoenberg chose them. we were told it was "something really really cool...at least to Schoenberg at the time."

So, i compared them, found some dyad pairs that were in two measures, but the third measure was completely different, so it threw me off...then the next couple seemed to have a couple dyads in common with the first two, and some flipping in order of specific pitches, but, i just wasn't seeing much.

My friend and i were discussing this as we were walking over (after drinking coffee) and we figured the professor would lay some crazy stuff down. Our professor, honestly, is quite amazing. he really tries to find out the why's of music, not just "Oh, and here are the row forms used and when." That's what theory is all about, yes, but so often, i've never gotten to that point in the class. it's about learning the pedantic issues; identifying the row, filling out a matrix, in set theory-getting everything in prime form, identifying trichords and such...My current theory professor says "well, yeah, you need to know how to do that, but, what's the point if you can't see the relationships the composer is creating? It's not about what form of the row, but WHY is that form of the row necessary at that specific moment."

So, my friend and i were walking and basically decided that, somehow, our professor would take the row, transpose it (probably a tritone), then take the retrograde, tear it into little bits, pee on it, put it in a magic hat, say three words, and "POOF" its the Shroud of Turin.

and, ya know, we were far off...

Our Professor took the forms. we pointed out a couple pairs of matching dyads, then he pointed out "they are ALL matching pairs." Shows how much space really messes with your thinking...we noticed the pairs close together, and the pairs that started and ended, but not the ones in the middle. boo to me for not being observant. shoulda started the analysis before 11pm last night. n'ah, i still wouldn't have seen it...

Then Professor posits a rule of transposition for the row- that if you transpose it 6 away, you'll get the dyads, and if you invert it and move it + or - 3 away, you get the dyads, thereby creating 4 form clusters.

THEN he goes on to show us how the measure with the form that didn't fit (which i knew didn't fit but didn't know why) fits in with these measures over here, but instead of doing dyads in order (1-2, 3-4, 5-6) he was stacking dyads vertically between the two forms...

thus, our professor more or less did take the form, transpose it, invert it, tear it into little bits...and made the Shroud of Turin...or at least a pretty damn clear picture of how Schoenberg put together this String Quartet and many other pieces...and eluded to the fact that later composers use this quite often...

He also said that doing a 12 tone matrix can confuse us from seeing this relationships. You do the matrix, the distance starts messing with what you see. Put everything close together, right on top of each other. Dissect measure by measure, form by form, and something big will pop out. Schoenberg lays down a classic musical form: Intro-AABAAB AND the intro, which is P0, of course, acts as a "tonic" if you will, and that the A section functions like a Dominant, and B as a secondary Dominant...thus, taking atonal harmonic and melodic ideas but classic tonal structural ideas all at once...

Schoenberg is awesome. and my professor is a much more gifted theorist than i probably ever will be.

and, everyday, as i walk to class, i pass KinderMusik posters, drawings of "what is music" with bright crayons, swirls, and all different shapes...and somehow, that means a lot more to me, and i get it...completely. my professor is bridging that gap, for me, of what i hear and what is on the page. it's not just random rows without meaning, it's a lot more...but it's still not bright crayons drawing self-meaningful shapes yet...that's the theory i'm looking for...and it may be just drawing brightly coloured shapes in crayon...

distraction

Last night, i got a bit distracted. the habit i've been trying to get going is using this blog at the end of a night to gather my thoughts before bed. Well, didn't happen last night.

they turned my water off for the morning, so, at midnight, i was like "oh, i should take a quick shower cause i won't get one in the morning and i don't want to stink for teaching." i also saved some water in a bottle so i could brush my teeth/drink water. I got a bit sad, cause when i woke up, my first thought was "I bought coffee!!!" followed by "Crap, no water..."

anyway, last night, i was working on "6 Pieces" Mvt. III. i've finally got the idea mostly in hand, i think, though i am probably going to tweak it like crazy today. the movement is titled "A Little Girl Under a Peach Tree/Whose Blossoms fall Into The Entrails/Of The Earth"

the basic idea is that there is a melody and a countermelody. this melody then loses notes, taken, first, by the wind-chime, then the Woodwinds, and finally the low brass. ya know, like the wind blows, and grabs a blossoms, and it falls to the earth? the original idea was to just leave the notes out as empty spaces, but the line got too jagged and empty...it works great for the allusion, but not so well musically. It's cool, like the tree is becoming bare. however, musically, it just...doesn't work too well. first off, it ends up with INSANE counting. seriously. the whole thing in in 6/8 and a lot of notes start popping up on 2 5 and 6 with rests all around them. do 7 measures of that kind of counting and even i don't want to play it. lol.

so, instead, i decided to take the notes out and rework the melody, shorting the melody half a bar each time. eventually, it should work out to almost being a chorale, since the note values of the remaining notes keeps elongating

Anyway, that's the idea. I've been distracted though. mind is just floating around the cosmos. at least i got the idea now. that's better than this weekend. still, mind, wherever you are, if you could make your way to my brain, that'd be awesome. thanks

some current projects

As i am failing at this real world thing (1 interview in 5 months of applications, at that was a fiasco), i'm turning back to the blog a bit. I never blogged a great deal, but i'll talk a bit about current projects and how i'm going about their creation.

First off is a piece for my buddy, trombonist David Whitwell. If you are interested in writing for trombone, especially if you're into the more avant garde, he's a good man to know. I wrote one piece for him already, "A Little Noise in the Trombone," for interactive pd patch and trombone. He seemed to like it, so requested a second piece. This one is to be, well, different.

David is a big fan of Charles Amirkhanian. I'm a fan too, as a matter of fact. So, he requested a piece Amirkhanian-esque, no trombone work (well, maybe a little), based on various sounds that he can make.

I struggled at first. I didn't want to go straight for a text piece a la "dutiful ducks" or any of Amirkhanian's other great text only pieces. At the same time, taking it as a piece using "a bunch of random sounds" just wasn't working for me. Considering the large amount of sampling work i do, Noah Creshevsky-esque one might say, you'd think translating it into the acoustic realm would be easy. not so much...

I was lacking a clarified vision. Without a clear vision, no artistic work can reach its potential. It will be prone to wandering. Carlos Carrillo taught me this, and its something i always struggle with. I hear sounds, i head lines, a snippet of, dare i say it, a melody, but hardly ever do i hear everything, start to finish. Don't have the memory i think, lol.

So i searched for a vision, and i came to realizations. first off, regardless of who is requesting the piece (in this case, a trombone player) it is a vocal piece. it's no schubert art song, but it is a vocal piece. So then i started thinking about how i start vocal pieces

text

Yep, even if am not going to directly set a text, for me, at least, starting with a text is a great place to start. First off, it gives me an idea of phonetics available. Limiting yourself is a wonderful thing. When the whole world is open, sometimes telling yourself that you only need these 10 things. It's like going to a supermarket...when you decide on a recipe, you don't buy the whole store, just the ingredients you need...well, and coke and a chocolate bar...

So, I'm waiting to hear back from David. he's an F. Scott Fitzgerald fan. I am not a huge fan, but it's his piece. heh. I know Fitzgerald does detailed and "lush" descriptions. This type of (post)impressionistic writing isn't my cup of tea, but it does lend itself well to descriptive style pieces. So, i pick something of Fitzgerald's, take my handy dandy list of sounds, check out my book on extended vocal technique, listen to Meredith Monk, and channel the Zen. or something like that. More on the process later. guessing the notation will be aleatoric in nature. open interpretation is wonderful

Now, piece 2: It's a piece for my good buddy Kendra (who has been referred to as "my good buddy" for 7 years now. i think it's a part of her name). She got married in July, and i was broke, so i couldn't go and i couldn't even buy her a present. What an ass am I?!? so, we struck a deal; how about i write a piece for her HS band and dedicate it to Kendra and Joseph. PERFECT!

I am going for a piece that will run around 7.5 minutes, 6 short vignettes based on Haiku by Matsuo Basho. I've had the text sitting around for, well, three years, and i've been looking for the moment to use it. Because of how i was envisioning the piece, it always lent itself to a HS level piece, grade 3 or so, than to the post-minimalism that is popular in NYC these days.

Basho's haiku's are perfect expressions of Buddhist sentiment. in other words, conceptually difficult, not something the "modern man" deals with well, but technically, well, simple. not saying simple in a bad way, in fact, simplicity is a thing of beauty. Reminds me of the works of Morton Feldman for some reason. I know they are demanding pieces, but, to me, exude a certain simplicity and beauty in a perfect performance.

So, i am taking 6 Haiku and writing 6 short movements, a minute or so each. I tailor all my HS pieces to the group somewhat, meaning, when i write it out "full" i do a lot of doubling of, say, bari sax and baritone/euphonium because the band doesn't have a bari sax. I think this will work out well for her group. gives her that multi-cultural standard that can be somewhat difficult to hit in an ensemble situation.

The last piece i'm working on albeit not very hard, is an electronic piece using mostly pd. it's based loosely on a sample of a friend saying the word "scream." I made a quick Shepard tone generator using that sample as a "canvas" and am now working on programming various scrubbers, grainers, and such to create sounds over top. Everything, of course, will use the same original sample. Starting with something small and simple and creating something large. Gotta love it. I have it planned to be a 1 minute piece and hope to enter it in 60x60, if i ever finish it. always a big if...

Now, i think i'm done sitting in this starbucks using the internet. I came to this Barnes and Nobles to buy a pricing guide for hockey cards (i am trying to sell off my 25+ complete sets i collected when i was much younger...), which failed, and buy an F. Scott Fitzgerald book. Guess i'll buy the giant compendium of short stories. All i know, is i don't want to use The Great Gatsby or A Curious Tale of Benjamin Button. I'm sure i will find something. i think there are 20 short stories in there. Ah, research.

Till next time quarter (HA!), peace my friends.