Exactitude of language...

...is incredibly important. If you follow this blog, you've probably seen one of my trends over the past year is to critique the language used by critics, and to get around their troublesome use of words by finding definitions. These definitions are sometimes literal, sometimes societal, and usually a created through combining the two. This gets to a certain sticky point (and one debated by philosophers extensively): meaning.

   What does a word mean? From where does the meaning come? Is language innate, passed along genetically, and only nuance is given during learning phases--an incredible oversimplification of Chomsky, barely comparable to his thoughts. Meaning in words can be tricky, and that's why philosophers and scientists define their terms.

    When we get into the meaning of music, things can be even stickier. There are many camps debating meaning in music, from ascribing a narrative (or looking for inner narratives) to purely formal approaches. I'm a sucker for a story, and in the past looked at the idea of storytelling in various mediums. I've talked about meaning in music in relation to politics, and that is an ongoing area of study and thought for me. I've even gone so far as to define and defend experimentalism, especially in the collegiate experience.

    And now I find my fingers tapping the keyboard again in search of a definition.

     A little less than 2 weeks ago, I posed a question on Facebook: what makes music (ir)relevant? The responses were of course varied, and from multiple people. Of course my friend Marek chimed in with "inasmuch as relevance implies pertinence, that question seems, like, incredibly relativistic." And that's the rub isn't it?

    The word relevant keeps being used in connection to music. Groups should be performing music that is relevant to today's younger generation. This is often distilled down into triadically based, beat oriented, non-traditionally structured, but traditional in form pieces; music that relates to or is derived from popular genres, which often share these incredibly general and borderline meaningless aspects.

    In this sense, the word relevant means "related to a known popular quantity." Or possibly "closely connected to something people already like." This seems to sprout from a definition from the 1960s when relevance became a buzzword--relevance at this point was related to ideas of social concern.

   In education, we often see the world used in conjunction with choosing majors. The humanities are under attack as being irrelevant. The Daily Beast compiled a list of "useless" degrees, and the fine arts were up there in the #1 slot. This of course set of a slew of "Oh no they didn't!" type responses. There have been defenses for humanities degrees, ranging from a mother defending her daughter's work, to Brown University's President making an impassioned argument for the financial importance of humanity degrees.

  Relevance in all these cases is tied directly to economics. Are humanities and fine arts (and music) degrees going the help students make lots of money?

  So, what does Greg Sandow mean when he talks about relevance? It's been a head-scratcher for me. Most of the time it seems like he means "music that is related, in some fashion, to music that people already like." His latest post he praised a concert of Nico Muhly and Pekka Kuusisto for their originality and fresh approach. I was perplexed at first, because he addressed Muhly's music as being "relevant," the format as being "personal" and the performers not being "high priests." I'm still sitting here the next day confused.

   Has Mr. Sandow never been to a new music concert outside of possibly the largest sanctioned halls? Has he never caught a concert by local NYC groups like Ensemble Signal, Talea, Ensemble Moto Perpetuo, Talujon, The Curiosity Cabinet, or any of the hundred other groups? He most certainly never caught my short-lived group, dfe, in concert when we played at the Yippie Museum in fall of '08 with a program about as varied as we could conceive (pulling from all three of his groups, plus an amazing rendition of "Twinkle Twinkle" by me on violin as we prepped another piece). I guess he hasn't noticed that the performers wear a wide assortment of clothing, performances happen at all sorts of spaces, and that, generally, contemporary chamber concerts have been exactly what he has described wanting them to be for...well...

    I was more or less instructed on how to give these concerts when I started my Masters in '07. By that point, they were incredibly old news, with my professor, Doug Cohen, telling me he had done them in the '80s.

  Ok, so where's the relevance. What makes this somewhat traditional structure so relevant. And yes, I mean traditional because as far as I can easily tell, dates back in the US at least to the 1960s with Phillip Glass' ensemble and the various loft concerts put on by Cage and Co...of course ignoring salon traditions, burlesque, and minstrelsy shows which did all the same things. (the smokers cough is getting better, but it seems to pop up in conversations like this...). I'm starting to feel like I'm spinning my tires--we're dealing with preconceptions, we're definitely dealing with a few critics obvious biases, and we're ignoring all the underlying economic questions behind low attendance. If it was just the music, a company like Live Nation, that runs a huge amount of concert venues, should be doing quite well catering to audiences with popular music. But that's not the case.

  But back to relevance. What makes music relevant? What makes music, to follow a more Webster definition, "closely connected or appropriate to the matter at hand?" In the discussion of what a relevant degree is, the "matter at hand" is purely economic. So, what is the matter at hand for music?

   For Sandow, and many others, it is also economic. The matter at hand is "how do we sell more tickets to a younger generation." Therefore, any music that they perceive to not sell tickets is irrelevant. Which means exactly what Sandow says the matter isn't is exactly what the matter is--by relevancy he means familiarity.

    What do I mean then? Sandow claims that it's not about familiarity, familiarity to a certain culture. By his estimation we should look at what the widest amount of people consume culturally, analyze the music, and program (or create) music using these ideas. I've already said in my post about experimentalism that this is backwords. By taking a stance of "this is what people like right now," we lose sight of what people may like the future. It's not to say we know what people like, but to write in a way that reflects only data received after the fact means we are perpetually writing behind. Think about that for a second...

    Let's say we do a survey of a possible target audience--for me, that might mean 21-30 year olds, both genders, all races, living in the Indianapolis area. I'd like the data parsed by gender, race, economic standing, specific neighborhood, etc. I'm specifically looking at what music people like, what they feel is connected to their culture. I send out two thousand questionnaires, wait around six weeks, get back the questionnaires, and set forth to put in all the data and analyze it. It takes me roughly six to eight weeks to get all the data into the database (and formatted correctly with all the pertinent info in the right places), and then another six to eight weeks to sieve through all the information. All of a sudden, I'm sitting on a minimum of eighteen weeks of work before I can start to figure out programming, which after going through all the info would mean finding the musical terms in that music.

    OR I can head over to the Billboard Experiment and use info from the top 100 as compiled from the 1960s through today and see the type of general data that so many critics drool over. If I use that, well...

    I better be in 4/4, C major, around 120 bpm, four to four and a half minutes in length, and it wouldn't help if people already knew who I was...

    Of course, this misses out on a ton of information. If I go back to my study, I'd quickly see how fragmented the mythical audience is. I would also start to see and hear similarities and differences between the music. The repetitive nature of a rap anthem versus the greater amount of variance in a large indie ensemble (like Polyphonic Spree). I'd see a wide variety of instruments, but also a regular uses of electronics, either to enhance the instruments or as purely electronic sounds.

    I would see the world encapsulated into a small study.

    And that's the problem, isn't it? If we take Marek's quip about relevancy to heart, there's truth. Relevancy is relational, it's always related as a "relevant to what." Sandow's arguments are mostly related to "relevant to selling tickets to a specific cross section of young adults that he has personal knowledge." Compare this to the wide variety of populations in the world, country, state, county, city, neighborhood where the arts are active.

    I end by posing a few questions:

• How can music, or anything, that is unfamiliar, be (ir)relevant?
• Is relevancy in an abstract form of art (such as music) tied only to its formal properties? Is it the rhythm, instrumentation, time signatures, use of melody, form, and structure all that is tied to relevancy?
• To who and how is it relevant? Relevant to what? To selling tickets? To reaching people through a musical experience? Are these the same thing? 
• Who are we really marketing these concerts to?
• Why are popular music live companies suffering difficulties, and what can we learn from those? Is just blanket emulation of traditional popular concert styles really going to save classical music?
• Is it actually a new and different idea? Groups like Classical Revolution and GroupMuse are great, but are they really ground-breaking? Do we have such a short memory to have forgotten that this was a major part of the 1960s art scene in NYC? Or that salon traditions existed in Europe for years, with a large amount of premieres happening in 2 piano versions done in people's houses? 
• And, most importantly: What are we actually talking about? 

   I'll be honest, there are many times I'm unsure anymore. It seems like we're just all spinning our tires. Sandow has been saying roughly the same things for twenty odd years. I've only spent the last year and change actively blogging in this sphere, and I realize that I'm repeating myself. Look at that first paragraph! It's all self-referential! That is a bad thing. 

    So why not take a step back, and instead of just continuously pushing a set position, why don't we start looking for questions again? Rather than pushing talking points, why not look at the questions above, and instead of answering with the same tired talking points, why not do some research and take me to task on my ignorance. I admit ignorance to a great many things. 

    What other questions do we need to answer before moving forward? What other words are we just tossing about without ever considering their definition or usage?

     How do we actual find answers rather than flash in the pan popular answers?

    

Badminton with Words

There are two words being bandied about a great deal in the classical music community these days: entrepreneurship and sustainability. Neither one are new concepts, with bloggers and modern writers tackling the issue for the past few years. Even more importantly, both have been vitally important portions of music from the beginning of time, and are inexorably linked to creative fields.

However, in the last couple years, we've seen a veritable boom in thinking about these two concepts. Part of it comes out from studies, including National Endowment for the Arts surveys on public participation, studies showing what many musicians have anecdotally known for years: that classical music audiences are older than they were. We've also seen a lot of reactionary material on rethinking degrees and recitals. My own alma mater, DePauw University, just got a 15 million dollar gift to revise their curriculum for musicians of the 21st century. With the failing of two major institutions, the general orchestral crisis with striking symphonies, ailing endowments, and reactions that range from conservative programming, to kitsch and pop driven programming, some national (and international) ire, and tons of local support, everyone has appeared to give their two cents on the subject.

Some people are reactionary (myself included), others have been at the fore in the years preceding the current financial issues. Greg Sandow has done a good job showing trends that may lead to understanding where the failings began with his timeline of the crisis. Jon Silpayamanant's blog has shown how some studies and ideas are red herrings, and his bibliographic timelines are great resources in studying 20th century (and sometimes into the 19th century) trends. And, of course, there's Drew McManus and many more that have graced my own blog over the past year. Maybe someone should put together a large repository of links just to people working on the subject? Not me, not today at least.

For my part, I'm done being reactionary at the moment. Time for some "innovation," if you will. But this innovation isn't about tossing my ideas on "how to fix the problem." Instead, it's going to be innovation on thinking about the problem. And by innovation, I mean changing my own stance and thinking creatively, not necessarily coming up with new ideas.

So, as with any good story, a good place to start is at the beginning. In the beginning of this blog, there were two words: entrepreneurship and sustainability. What do these terms mean? First, let's talk about entrepreneurship. What is an entrepreneur? A simple economic definition is "one who starts and runs a business or businesses." But is that really all an entrepreneur is? Other key components listed in various sites are "leadership, initiative, and innovation." From a business standpoint, this could mean someone inventing a new device, or upgrading a past one, and selling it in their own business--highly touted entrepreneurs (and venture capitalists) include Elon Musk of Tesla and Space X; Henry Ford and the auto industry; Steve Jobs and Bill Gates in computing; and many more. Entrepreneurs are separate from researchers who may be incredibly innovative, be major leaders, and even have large amounts of initiative by the simple economic situation--a researcher or scientist may not take the step to start their own business.

So, what is an entrepreneur in the arts? The main focus I've seen is on how artists can make a living. This may include innovation, but mostly innovation from an "economic" standpoint--how do we market better, how do we utilize social media, what do we teach students so they can make a living post graduation? There's also a bit of focus on collaboration, mainly with other artists, as a way to create something "sustainable:" the idea that by working together in collectives, we may have a better chance to make enough money to live.

Then there is sustainability. This is a loaded term with at least two separate, equally talked about areas of study; economic sustainability and ecological sustainability. Prior to the current crisis, there was a lot of blogging and talk about sustainability in ethnomusicology groups. Jeff Todd Titon is a name that pops up a lot in modern research of cultural sustainability, which looks at a combination of economic and ecological sustainability of the arts--mainly of folk traditions.

What I see in modern conversations about sustainability is entirely economical; not cultural, not ecological, purely economical. How do we make enough money? What is enough money? Fundraising ideas? For me the biggest tell of the shift in thinking was in the Minnesota Orchestra mission statement:

The Minnesota Orchestral Association inspires, educates and serves our community through internationally recognized performances of exceptional music delivered within a sustainable financial structure.

That's all well and good, but notice it doesn't actually mention orchestral music, and says quite firmly "within a sustainable financial structure."

Now, I'm not knocking either idea. Entrepreneurship and sustainability are both important to music. However, it's important to think about how semantics can prime a situation. When someone says "sustainability" the current in many brains right now means "sustainable financial structure." When we hear about sustainable financial structure, what comes to mind? Well, if you read the news in the US, it's something that's a highly polarized issue that gets tossed into two broad categories: out of control spending by a large government; and not enough spending by the government to help push economic recovery.

Dichotomy, it's the essence of the human mind. As my playwriting teacher once told me: keep everything to dualistic choices, they're easier for everyone to understand (My edit: mainly in a limited time).

What I'd like to push for is more options and ideas on the subject. My gut reaction is that the conversations about sustainability and entrepreneurship are actually being hampered by the words themselves. We've reached a point where specific meanings of coalesced and we're being split into camps. This is decidedly uncreative, and unbecoming of artists. Really, a field that prides itself on diversity, on proliferating new ideas, we're letting a couple common definitions cloud our judgement? Perhaps it's time to remove the language itself from the equation. So, I'll do my best to avoid those terms, and find terms more specific to the situation.

The second issue I'm seeing, past the semantic, is that of historical context. For many, this crisis is seen as completely unique, something that has never happened before. Have there been no crises in "classical music" before? I can think of several--the move from a patron based system to an independent system (pushed by Beethoven but adopted by many in 19th century Romantic view. And, of course, it's not like patronage actually ended, but the move from a court position to an independent position caused all sorts of interesting battles). Do we forget the troubles and trials of Mozart, who attempted the lifestyle before Beethoven and didn't do such a great job? Or how hard Beethoven fought for his share of the pie? And how, moving into the 20th century, patronage didn't go away, but shifted, from nobles in the 18th century, to orchestras, opera houses, and the state in the 19th century, to academia starting in the late 19th century into the 20th century as support from the state dwindled. This is just one instance where a historical perspective could be very helpful: how did the arts change during these major changes in economic, social, and political change? We see countries moving from monarchies to democracies (or to more heavily structured parliamentary systems), the industrial revolution changing economics on a huge scale (much like the information and electronics age are changing economics, especially rapidly in the rise of digital media and online retailers), and social movements in creating the middle class, the ending of slavery, serfdom, and other forms of indentured servitude, and an increase in freedoms for people through the 20th century. How has art and music transformed during these time periods?

In other words, why are so many people attempting to reinvent the wheel? Why are so many of us (including myself) being reactionary? and even deeper, why are we looking for roots to the problems?

Which is my third issue: we need to identify roots of problems and not just treat symptoms. There are organizations and individuals looking at these problems: Jon Silpayamanant is going in this direction; the NEA published a report on how technology influences arts participation, a study I'm currently working my way through and considering deeply. But many of us (myself again included), haven't always been looking for the root of problems. We've found problems, for instance, the aging audience. However, why is the audience aging? There has been some recent work looking into this, from raising ticket prices to outreach to the distancing from the public. I've posited a few in my posts recently as well.

But now's the time to stop positing and actually investigate and find out why. Time to do studies and see which of these many factors are actually influencing people in specific communities and nation-wide. Before we start leaping into making curriculums (even though I agree we need to create new curriculums in colleges at all levels), we need to identify the root of the problem. Otherwise our changes are nothing more than band-aids tossed on a tumor.

There is a third word bandied about as well: collaboration. It is, also, misused, I think, and in need of some semantic repair. But, at the moment, I think I'll stop and collect my thoughts again--this has been sitting for a few weeks as I worked through my thoughts.

Because it's time we stopped being purely reactionary. There's a time and place for it, but, when we are faced with deep problems, problems of a financial, philosophical (both as far as the place of the arts in society, as well as the roles of various agencies in the arts), political, social, and ecological. Actually, I could sum up by saying let's look at the deep problems of the arts and the world, but that is all at once too broad, too prosaic, and too philosophical.

Instead, let's simply take a breath and act like artists: ask a question, work through that question creatively from many angles, find a deeper, more important question, and come up with several hundred possible ideas to try, then try them, one by one, in various scenarios. Let's step back from the answering phase we seem to be at, and move back to questioning.

Mainly, now that we've identified problems let's ask "What is the root of the problem?"

The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

   This is probably my last rant about this years June in Buffalo. Feel free to peruse the rest. And I do mean peruse, not skim.  

    Also, what follows may be Good, Bad, or Ugly. I don't know yet. Let me know what you think! Sorry to those that have synesthesia, as this may just be annoying or confusing.

   Whenever you go to a festival of any kind, it always happens: the awesome piece that blows you away; the bad pieces you shrug and try to forget; and the train wrecks that we wish we could un-hear/see but will stay with us forever.

    I said last time that I had no plans on writing reviews. This is still entirely valid. Instead, this is about concepts, philosophy, craftsmanship, and trends.

   There were 13 concerts during JiB. Over 7 days, that can drain a person. This is especially true when a large portion of the music is dense and challenging--awash with sounds, swirling timbres, and intense moments.

    The Good: 13 concerts usually means a wide variety of music. It can keep you on your toes and provide a myriad of experiences in a short time.

    The Bad: Coherence. Half the concerts, roughly, were of participant works or from the performance institute. These concerts caused lots of strain--sometimes things were so dissimilar it was hard to concentrate. Other times you end up with a concert that was nearly the same throughout. The concerts by visiting groups were much more well planned. This is just a side-effect from the judging process. (Remember, The Bad isn't The Ugly. Sometimes, The Bad just happens as a side-effect.)

    The Ugly: 13 concerts is unlucky. That means that there will be quite a few pieces you severely dislike. The Law of Ugly states that there will be one piece per concert that you revile. That's a lot of Ugly.

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    That being said, what did I observe? Again, no specific critiques. Instead, let's look at some trends. Let's start with the concepts and philosophy of music, shall we?

    The Good: JiB had a large number of people that had strong, coherent philosophies. The variety was high (the previous Good, and something I'm holding onto as we move forward), and the conversations led to lots of peer learning. The most interesting were those far different than my own.

    The Bad: Sometimes, those philosophies, no matter how interesting when we were discussing them, just didn't work. The Good from this are the composers that stated "I was trying something, and, yeah, this was a danger. And it didn't go as I planned. Whoops..." The Bad was when they didn't see that it didn't really work the way they had hoped.

    The Ugly: When The Bad goes too far, it becomes Ugly. A failed philosophy is always a learning experience. The Good comes from learning, The Bad comes from ignoring the learning, The Ugly comes when it fails, you ignore the learning, and you are derisive toward other people's philosophies. Pieces fail--some philosophies are much harder to implement than others. Some ideas work wonderfully musically while others, well...may not be suited to music at all. This is fairly subjective, but not always--craftsmanship is a different Ugly, however. But remember that first Ugly--with 13 concerts, and The Law of Ugly in effect, sometimes things can go horribly wrong.

     The Good: When participants took the next step in a philosophical thought. They weren't rehashing John Cage, Helmut Lachenmann, Arvo Part, Tristan Murail, or Brian Ferneyhough. Instead, they were taking ideas and making a unique perspective, often times mashing up ideas. One of my favourites came from Andrew Greenwald, whose work reminds so much of the direction I had once been going many years ago. The philosophy was clear, the craftsmanship strong, and what came out was, whether you aesthetically like it or not, incredibly successful music. Yes, much of what he was doing owes itself to Lachenmann and those ilk, but it's "in the vein of" not a copy. And that is a Good distinction.

     The Bad: The same old philosophies of the aforementioned group (and more, of course), and copying of their styles, philosophies, and music. Put your own spin on things! Go out there and do something that is you! As Augusta Read Thomas said "Always put yourself into the music--you are what you listen to, but don't lose who you are." (this is paraphrased from two separate masterclasses, and is my interpretation of her words)

     The Ugly: Oh, it's not your idea, how this music should go? Oh, it's a bad copy of "So-and-So." Uh, ya know, "So-and-So," the guy that wrote these famous pieces? Don't know him? What about these guys? Dunno them either...What about this movement? Any of these pieces? Oh...hmm...well...uh, you should listen to those and examine what you wrote. The Ugly rears its head high when a composer is unaware of where his music fits in time, others that have done similar works in the past, and all the previous moments. When composers try to completely reinvent the wheel, it seems to turn into a square. And a square wheel is quite Ugly.

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Onto something less subjective: craftsmanship. Certain styles require a huge amount of care in the creation All music requires a huge amount of care in its creation. All things, really. This blog-post is no different. Even as I try a different style of narrative, I'm constantly thinking about the craft--and am completely aware that I am a composer first, a trombonist second, an audio engineer third, a video game player fourth, a chef fifth, and somewhere down at place 72, a writer. And because of the narrative shift, every word will be carefully scrutinized, by myself and by my avid readership (HA! it's a joke).

      The Good: Ferneyhough, Thomas, Wyner, Murail, Felder, Wuorinen; they are all master crafters. Many of the participants were able, and sometimes even quite good at their craft. JiB actually had some of the finest crafter participant works of any festival I've attend. Granted, I don't go to many acoustic festivals, but that shouldn't alter things (electroacoustic or acoustic doesn't matter--at least, it shouldn't).

     The Bad: Certain things are difficult to be convincing. If you are writing in a triadically based Romantic style, you've got a lot of history going against you. The tradition dictates certain forms of construction, structuring devices, and forms. When you try something different, it's obvious what is different because the "learned" audience knows from whence it was derived. The Bad comes when it fails--a collective groan goes up as things go south. But, often times, there are redeeming qualities, and it turns itself into something the listeners can still make it through without anger.

     The Ugly: You've got an idea for a piece--whatever it is, you better do it all the way. Oh, crap, it's being somewhat half-assed. Uh-oh, it's entirely derivative and being half-assed. Well, maybe it'll go by quickly. THE PIECE IS TWENTY MINUTES?!? You've gotta be friggin' kidding me! No? The Ugly comes from these moments. Each moment isn't carefully considered and crafted. Maybe you're doing a specific construction, a fugue for instance, and you start to play with the idea of the fugue. That has to be incredibly carefully considered, each moment crafted as lovingly as possible. Or perhaps you're working from a framework of silence being of importance. Remember that when sound occurs surrounded by silence, the audience attends to that sound even more strongly. Make the sound worth it. If you don't, well...an audience following The Ugly isn't as forgiving as The Bad.

     The Good: The piece got in, made it's statement, and got out. Each moment was crafted, each idea and theme afforded the time it needed. This is a wonderful show of craftsmanship. At JiB, happily, it wasn't just the guest composers that pulled this feat off.

    The Bad: A piece slightly overstayed its welcome, was long-winded, or cut off without really saying what it needed to say. This happens to us all as we compose. Ferneyhough called me on it quite effectively. No man can avoid The Bad forever. The audience smiles a wane smile, the composer winces a bit as s/he realizes it didn't quite go as planned. Always be cognizant of time--Ferneyhough is good at it, Mozart and Bach are masters. Bruckner shows what long-winded speeches can say. And Feldman shows the kind of material that can be spoken like Old Entish--important things can take a long time to say. This relates to a theme in playwriting: the longest scene is often the most important. It's important to remember what Ferneyhough told me because he is quite correct.

   The Ugly: Did I mention 20 minute pieces? What about 45 minute? Ok, that only happened once and it did technically demand at least that much time. As stated above, often times The Ugly comes when The Bad has gone way too far, like those refried beans you had meant to throw away a couple weeks ago, and now the entire container is thrown away (or cultivated for a new kind of mold that seems to be all colours all at once). When you have an idea, say exploring a certain set of pitch relationships, you better know exactly how many relationships there are, how many permutations of those relationships there are, and the ways to best show them to the audience...because if you've only got about 20 permutations with only a few really effective ways of navigating them, and your piece goes for 20 minutes, well...You better be Morton Feldman and know how to craft all those moments.

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    I think I've been vague enough not to ruffle too many feathers, but specific enough to make my points. It seems like The Good gets short-changed, but, for me at least, The Good always seems to be able to be recalled with only the slightest bit of description. Remembering that transcendantal moment, that sublime instant when all music made sense is something I revel. I hold those moments in brain as the fondest of memories. These are technically The Best, but they're only derived in relation to The Good. The Bad are common occurrences, things encountered at every concert. Sometimes it takes a while to find the right words, but we've all encountered them. The Ugly don't happen too often, but The Law of Ugly is pretty strict in its "One Per Concert" rule. But we block it out, so it's important to hold The Ugly up to a mirror.

    All three (or four, if you're lucky and get The Best as well) are equally important experiences. As a composer (or any artist), you will run into all these at various times in your own endeavors. We all try exceedingly hard for The Good; The Bad pops up often; we avoid The Ugly as best we can, but sometimes through stubbornness, bad luck, ignorance, or any number of other factors, The Ugly rears its deformed head; The Best is what we all dream for any performance--it's important to take it in context after The Euphoria fades from the performance and really work retrospectively critical.

    All in all, JiB was definitely a member of The Good. The Good outweighed The Bad and The Ugly. While following a standard statistical deviation in concerts, masterclasses and lectures where all members of The Good.

     I've done as JiB told me. Now onto his ornery aunt, Ems. Actually, they're not related, just happened within a week of each other this year.

those troubling students

Working with CITS has been an interesting experience. First off, trying to find time in an hour to see about 10 different compositions is incredibly challenging. Also, just how many different experiences i can get in that brief hour (actually, it's 50 minutes. lol)

I am really amazed at the level of creativity paired with the level of laziness i see in the group. It's frustrating, to say the least. They'll kinda loosely jot down something...that almost looks like western notation, but with the stems going the wrong way, no dynamics, durations being quite relative. heh. And then, the student will play it and, boom, makes sense.

Still, here's a run-down of some of the commonalities i am seeing in these young composers

--fear of rests.

--repetition (direct and possibly changed by octave)

--homophonic part writing (single melody, sometimes with accompaniment, sometimes harmonized in thirds, but always exactly together)

--performance vs. notation (playing only one sharp, but writing in two; playing more dynamics than written; not playing written dynamics, etc)

-- lots of ideas

--"i don't want to write it down" (i have heard this way too many times. lol. to me it sounds of laziness or insecurity in their own skills as far as transcribing their ideas).

--"I don't know what to write" (i believe this is related to the above, mostly thinking they CAN'T write. they actually do have ideas up there, lots of them, just have to coax them out)

--"But does it sound good" (there's a general fear in this age group of rejection, and they seek peer acceptance. So, "does it sound good?" is certainly a social statement more than anything. if you talk to them one on one they will say "Well, i like it!" I try to stress that is most important.)

some of the problems i attribute to age and practice. one must practice notation, just as one practices anything else. I still get my stems going the wrong direction sometimes (i cover my tracks by suddenly writing another line on the other side, like i was THINKING two things, and so that's why the stems are doing that...mmmmmhm.) the same with the performance vs. notation. they are only in 7th grade, i don't expect them to read with perfect dynamics every time yet.

The fear or rests is inherent in a lot of music. Actually, i think fear is the wrong word. Confusion might work better. One student embraced rests, and had them throughout her composition. But what ended up happening was that it sounded like it either needed a second line with her that would play through part of the rests, or it was just a very fragmented piece. So, when to use rests?

I try to tell younger students that rests are more like accents. They focus the ear on what just happened and on what will happen. it's like a build up in a song, with a big crescendo, getting louder and louder, then suddenly, a brief silence, then BOOM, everyone enters in the loudest passage of the piece. That loud moment was made louder and more unexpected by that brief silence. The crescendo into it makes us believe that it's going to that huge loud moment. but that brief break makes the mind go "Oh man, wtf is going to happen!" it could drop to nearly inaudible dynamic levels, it could explode in cacophony. who knows!

So, i usually begin students thinking about rests as accents. The next step i usually through in is rests as breaths or sighs. It is a release after a moment of high energy in a piece. This energy can come from any number of places; harmonic tension, active rhythmic schemes, etc. Sometimes, it's nice to just stop and take a breath.

The biggest problem is probably the "I don't want to write it down." I've tried a few ways to get students past this. Questions like "how will others play it? how will you remember it in 20 years?" and then ideas like "sometimes seeing what you're hearing can give you more ideas of what to do with it." heck, even sometimes i try "well, i can't make you write it down. i gave you some good reasons [above] but, in the end, your teacher has given it to you as an assignment. if nothing else, you better get something down." I dislike that last option, but, for some students, the fear of "F" is more than fear of peer mediation. mostly i try and coax the music out of them onto the paper.

One student, in particular, is giving my trouble with this. he has tons of ideas. every time i come in, he plays me something different. this week he said "i have two ideas, and i think they'd go great together. but how would i put them together." He then proceeds to play me two short phrases.

This student has not written anything down all semester. My answer (which as truthful) "It's hard for me to come up with something off the top of my head on one hearing. If you write it down, it's easier for me to see it and hear it in my head. Then i can come up with some ideas. Just jot those two ideas down and we can work on how to get them together."

His answer was "i don't like writing them down." and i replied "I really want to help you, but i am not the kind of musician that plays by ear well. You've got a gifted ear and gifted memory. I just don't have that. If you write it down, i can come up with lots of ideas. I just need to see it."

after that he just stared off into space and started playing. It's an interesting problem. He has some definite social problems, namely missing verbal and physical cues in conversations quite often, borderline obsessive interest in specific things (for him, music), difficulty with authority, a lack of interest in socializing, and sometimes seems to go into fugue states, where he'll just start playing and be completely in his own world.

Ok, fugue start is far to harsh of a term for what happens. its not like he forgets who is, wanders around the school, and comes up with a new identity, and then his memories come back in a flash. lol. it actually reminds me almost of a complex partial seizure, where he gets stuck in a bit of a repetition and spaces out doing it. his teacher thinks he has symptoms of Asperger's. I agree with that in some sense, but i'm not professional, and i don't see him every day.

Did you know that they think Mozart may have had Asperger's Syndrome? seriously, i had no idea until i looked up some more info (one student has been diagnosed with Asperger's so i was trolling info to see how i could best help her) and it was up on a couple different articles. random. Anyway, there's a single-mindedness to what this student (the one not diagnosed with anything) does. He does quite well in school, when he does his work, aces tests, and gets preoccupied. hm...sounds a lot like me in school. LOL. except i did turn in my work, i just happened to do it moments before it was due. I am merely lazy

Anyway, it's a conundrum. I'm just trying to get him to write it down. If i was any good at transcription (easily my weakest point of being a musician), i would just write it down as he plays it, and then get him to work with it after that step. Alas, it's not my forte at all, so i have to find a strategy to get him to notate something. I get the feeling like if he breaks that one barrier, he could write whatever he wants.

hm, maybe i'll address my thoughts on the other things later. This has gone on long enough. lol