An Imaginary Music: A Recital on the Emb Tembuk

These recordings are the first time one of the great Tondish musical traditions has been heard outside of Tond.

The Performer
S’Arik Dãelil is a recognized master of the tembuk. One of the leaders of the Sawarsh style of performance, he was raised in the southern Emb Lands by his musician family and trained for nine years at the Great Klemon. He now gives concerts all over the Emb Lands, and has over one hundred students.

The Instrument
The tembuk is a tuned percussion instrument similar to a marimba. It has wooden keys and is played by striking with various small mallets, but it also has metal (usually bronze) resonators for each key. These vibrate sympathetically with the note struck, adding a metallic “reverb” to the sound of the instrument. The higher register in particular stands out like chimes; these notes are reserved for climactic moments in the performance lest they overwhelm the other sounds.

Similar instruments are found throughout Tond (particularly in the Sherványa territories, where the onomatopoeically-named ketatang is a major part of the Nocturnal Music) but the Emb tembuk is by far the largest, covering nearly five octaves. Its keys are arranged in five banks (like the manuals of an organ), one octave (twelve notes) each, progressing from lowest, nearest the performer, to highest, farthest away.

The Music
Emb classical music is modal and often improvisatory, thus it has more in common with Asian classical musics than their Western counterparts. Harmony and “chords” are unknown, but the solo performer often adds his own fragmentary heterophonic accompaniment in different octaves. Meter is free; there is no recognizable pulse. The scale is more or less the familiar chromatic scale, though the Emb division into “keys” and “modes” is somewhat different than music outside of Tond.

This is music for active listening, not for dancing. It is often performed at formal concerts. Incomprehensible to the non-Tondish at first, the music will nevertheless reveal itself immediately to be in more than one style.

Bolsã are modal pieces, based on ancient melodies. When played on the tembuk, the melodies are slowed down and decorated (and sustained) with irregular tremolo. A subgroup are the sanosã, which use the compositional and performance techniques of the bolsã repertoire but are based on variously rhythmed and accented single pitches, sometimes with a hint of bolsã melody as a kind of coda. In both styles, the high notes (called ewaz or “stars”) are used sparingly to great effect; their first appearance in a concert is seldom without notice.

More esoteric are the esremsã pieces. These appear to the casual listener to be nothing more than random notes. More careful listening reveals that on one level, these pitches are in fact random; that is, they have no discernible pattern; but on another level they are carefully chosen. Esremsã music is derived from the Emb concept of lagofã (“backing off and finding”); in the mystical Emb interpretation of the pan-Tondish Shar-Lan religion, one is to assume the mindset of a small child and trust Shar (the Tondish deity) to show what to do. In the performance of esremsã music, this takes the form of exploring the instrument as if one has never seen it before, playing notes and savoring their sounds without linking them to any others. The audience attempts to assume the same frame of mind, listening without preconceptions or expectations. Despite this highly-concentrated casualness, most esremsã pieces are composed: the existence of “multiple” esremsã confirms this, where phrases repeat later (in double, triple, or even quadruple patterns) while further “explorations” are occurring.

A collection of bolsã, sanosã, and esremsã, lasting for about an hour, makes a sanso or “concert”. Usually the performer begins with bolsã and esremsã styles being very distinct, but the musical forms gradually merge as the bolsã simplify and become more concentrated, changing into sanosã, while the esremsã become more complex and move into the “multiple” styles. During all of this, the master musician also takes into account all four of the Tondish “aspects” of created reality, attempting to both remind the audience of their beneficial natures while avoiding their detrimental features. Thus, kullándu (“fire”) is said to link to the “burning” creative aspects of the music itself, but without discordant notes (or “enemy tones”) that would indicate fiery destruction; likewise, tándáalis (“stone”) indicates the immobile parts of the music (its form and set pitches) without large, ponderous sounds or motifs that would indicate earthquakes or landslides. Lórnáalis (“air”) is shown by the imagination of the artist and the distance between himself and the audience (though this is the most dangerous of “the Four”, the abode of spirits, and the Emb are careful to avoid any ideas of “manifesting”); Kewándii (“water”) is shown as the flow of notes in time, while avoiding loud rushes of sound that would indicate floods.

These philosophies make the music more interesting on a deeper level; however, they are unlikely to be appreciated by the non-Tondish listener. It is my advice that one assume the attitude of lagofã, whether or not it is understood completely, and simply sit back and take in the music without ideas or preconceptions.

 

Okay, this is a fascinating thought experiment, but what is this music really?

It's part of my "Another This World" series. I’ve been messing around with electronic music, musique concrète, and field recordings. I ran some Gregorian chants through a MIDI plug-in and set it to produce a virtual marimba. Adding deep reverb resulted in this mysterious music. The MIDI, interestingly, picked up overtones and resonance of the cathedral recording space, and rendered them as the fragmentary heterophony and “stars” I mentioned in the Emb music. I’m having fun listening to the result, but the original chants are copyrighted material so it is unlikely I will be able to post any of it for the public. Maybe the reader, if curious, can try it themselves.

As for the Emb, they are a civilization in my imaginary world of Tond, the setting for my series of fantasy novels. To read them, follow this link or read this blog's sisters, The Fronds in Tond and the BookWords Blogg (book reviews and fun for "werd nerds"!) Although I don't play anything resembling a marimba, "S'Arik Dãelil" is a reasonable rendering of my name in the Emb language.

Four Albums on Bandcamp and Four of My Own

Brief album reviews this time: everything here is on Bandcamp.com.

Aki Takahashi: Piano Space 4
I used to listen to the “Piano Space” series on vinyl back in the day. Now they’re on Bandcamp, but the pieces are arranged into different albums. No matter. These are mid- to late-20th century avant-garde piano music. Most do indeed have a lot of “space” in them (though Toshi Ichiyagani’s “Piano Media” is a frenetic exception) and all feature the delicacy of Ms. Takahashi’s touch. If you thought this stuff was all stark and forbidding, give this a listen.

Alan Hajduk: Arasynth
I once commented that classical music followed (or follows) a particular historical timeline until the present day, where it “sort-of merges with electronica”. There’s not that much difference, I said, between Steve Reich and EDM. This statement would have some people screaming in horror, while others would probably nod quietly in agreement but not say anything out loud. This electronica has a heavy bass beat and a cyberpunk backstory, but the repeating and gradually shifting riffs are of similar ilk.

Infusion Baroque: 1747: C.P.E. Bach
I should have paid more attention to the “other” Bachs before now. Judging by the musicians' expressions on the album cover, they're enjoying the music too.

Kayhan Kalhor and Toumani Diabate: The Sky is the Same Colour Everywhere
A meeting of minds and a meeting of cultures resulted in this gemlike, meditative improvised album. Listen to it all in one sitting: the pieces are linked so stopping in the middle produces a jarring cut-off, and besides, it's better to let the music flow over you like waves. My only complaint is that some of it gets a bit repetitious (once those four desecending notes appear, neither musician is willing to ever let them go) but moments of exquisite beauty occur throughout. 

The fifth review today is one (or four!) of my own.

I’ve been working on a huge musical project lately (it’s rather frightening how such things can get out of control) and I’ve posted some of it on Bandcamp also. Called “Another This World”, and it draws inspiration from field recordings, or perhaps I should say it is (but at the same time is not) field recordings. What’s going on here is that I took recordings of nature, urban sounds, and some old cassettes of experimental sounds I’d made years ago, ran them through filters and through a MIDI plug-in to produce “instruments”, and remixed and re-processed the result. This made four albums of what could either be old-school musique-concrète or avant-garde chamber music (though not meant to be played “live”). Each of them features a different virtual instrument: one is titled “Mallets” and has a virtual marimba up front; one (called “Renderings”) features a (similar) vibraphone; one is obviously electronic; and one features a piano (this latter one may change around in a week or so; I’m waiting for permission to use some copyrighted material). They may be played in any order, though I would recommend listening to the "piano" one somewhere in the middle and saving the “electronic” one (called “Ancient Forest”) for last. All of my music is free to listen at this link (and another of my albums is on Right Brain Records, here). Please comment, and if you really like one or more of them, purchase it. Thank you!

Us and Ussers at Jack Straw, 2/22/2025

On a rainy afternoon last Saturday, five musicians including me gathered for a quiet protest against the noise which has been coming from the top lately. Two of the musicians couldn’t make it, so the “band” was different than expected, but we made quite a lot of quiet anyway.
Yes, we made a lot of quiet. Not a lot of noise. The music was improvised and aleatory, incorporating a lot of subtle sounds and silences, and sometimes tentative in sound (though not in intent). It was not “mellow”, however. We are not mellow; neither are we in compliance.

Location: Jack Straw Cultural Center, Seattle
Personnel:
Me (S. Eric Scribner): piano, hammered dulcimer, percussion
Keith Eisenbrey: piano, percussion
Karen Eisenbrey: percussion
Bruce Greeley: bass clarinet, random little instruments
Patrick Cunningham: synthesizer, percussion
Zeos Greene: sound engineer

The concert was watched over by an appreciative usser.
Ussers (rhymes with bussers and cussers) are a private symbol of mine, though I have yet to determine what they symbolize. Domed rectangles, animals but not recognizable as such, vaguely ominous, clinging to walls, associated with deep bass hooting and coughing sounds: they seem to be derived from an early hypnogogic vision or a long-forgotten synesthetic response to the sound of owls. (I am not a synesthete, though I have read that children may perceive sounds in this manner but later lose the ability.) I often connect ussers to sleep and dreams; I use them as such in this piece and in my novel “Ussers and the Echo of Nothing”. The one in this concert rested on the back wall. I’d made it from a cardboard box and a Styrofoam pincushion; I’d spraypainted it all the same color the day before and it still reeked of acrylic paint in the car all the way to the concert. In the somewhat larger space of the Jack Straw studio, the smell drifted away. As usual per ussers, nobody in the audience even noticed it until I pointed it out late in the concert.

We played four pieces.

Free Improvisation (I’ll call it “An Usser Watched Us”)
We made this up on the spot. Kieth provided a matrix of mysterious piano chords in a quasi-rhythm while the rest of us fazed in and out of silence with drones, percussive taps, and occasional hints of a groove.

Tree and Stone
Percussion made of stones and tree branches or paper “rustlers” to imitate the sound of wind swishing in leaves.
Graphic scores made from paintings subdivided into thirty one-minute sections.
Sounds played “in appreciation of the trees and stones that God made”.
Patrick added an electronic drone piece of his own composition: beginning as trembling bass squawks, evolving into a mountainous drone and subsiding into a series of bell-tone waves.
Most of our stones were small and clicked when we knocked them together, but one musician brought two large stones which boomed. The sound of an avalanche over the sound of leaves? One of these stones broke on the last strike and a piece clattered to the floor. Yes, an aleatory avalanche.
The YouTube version of this, from several years ago, is outside (not in a concert venue) and nearly silent.

SoundScroll X (10)
Much like “An Usser Watched Us” but based on a graphic score like a landscape. Keith and I traded places for this one.

Ussers of Sleep
The reason for the usser sculpture revealed.
“There was a luminous white mattress floating in the air in a room off to the side of the church sanctuary, and to the other side of the room there was a pool where I took a bath (it wasn’t the church’s baptismal). I took my shoes off, slipped my foot off the mattress where I was sitting, and complained how cold the water was, then I determinedly plunged both feet into the same warm water. I stood there for a few minutes, then I walked around to the side of the house and went in the back door by the kitchen. My shoes were on again. There was a child, a little girl with blonde hair, sitting on the dinner table; she wasn’t looking at me so I concluded that the owners of the house had told their children not to look at strangers. I went to the refrigerator, looked at some of the pictures that had been posted there; two were of people wearing a round head brace. I went back outside to the pool and put some shampoo on the washcloth and started to wash my hair. There were some guys at the other end of the grassy hard who started laughing at how my hair looked. I could see my own head, and my hair was plastered in feather-like shapes exactly like the feathers of female mallard duck. The men in the yard said it looked like something from a comic strip. I commented that I’d seen something like it on a minor character in Calvin and Hobbes. That minor character appeared; a smooth-haired yellowish-colored wiener dog. It put its paws on the picnic table next to me and jumped up, then looked at me, begging for something. I didn’t want it following me around, so I blew in its face to annoy it. It didn’t want to leave and it followed me.”
We read dream sequences like this in random order (one audience member read one too) over my prerecorded electronic drones.

Afterward
Some of the audience hung around for a half-hour chatting with us, talking about music in general, this music in particular, how the microtonal intonations in some of the pieces were reminiscent of Harry Partch, and how meditative and quieting the whole thing was despite its unconventionality. One woman told me I had been her substitute teacher in middle school some years ago but I probably didn’t remember. As I took down the usser sculpture from the wall, another said, “Oh, that’s what you were referring to.” But it had been there all along. Just like in my novel, an usser is seldom seen.
The next day, on a social media site, Karen (who writes a blog on band names) suggested our “band” should have been called Usandussers (Us And Ussers, after a band called You and Ewan). Works for me, or, for us (or uss).

Ten More Albums: Loops, Strangers, and a Voyage to Middle-Earth

Mini-revies of ten more albums, mostly classical this time.
Maybe next month I'll be able to return to at least one live concert.

John Adams: Shaker Loops / Violin Concerto
(Kent Nagano, London Symphony, Gidon Kremer)
Two of the greatest late-20th century "classical" compositions, with complex formal structure despite the wide variety of "moods". Though the orchestration is conventional (violin solo with symphony orchestra; string section), the "sound" is often surprising and delightful. Listen for the reference to the Mozart Clarinet Concerto amid the dreamlike bells and shimmer of the second movement of the Violin Concerto.

JS Bach: Cantatas
(Thomas Quasthoff)
This is music at its most sublime: mathematically complex, pleasant, spiritual, somehow more complete than a lot of other music. Quasthoff’s bass-baritone voice is smooth and melodic; dramatic without overstating the performance. The oboe and violin soli, in counterpoint to the vocal lines, are a nice touches; as is the varied instrumentation on this CD. Listening to this, I have the thought again: a lot of music is still trying to come to terms with J. S. Bach.

Brahms: Piano Trios
(Emanuel Ax, Leonidas Kavakos, Yo-Yo-Ma)
Though I’m a lifelong listener to classical music, Brahms (and chamber music) are relatively new to me (I grew up on composers like Mahler and Messaien, and used to perceive Brahms symphonies as endless undifferentiated full-orchestra sameness). These recordings would have just the opposite effect on the neophyte: one may be tempted to consider them too “easy listening”. Indeed, they are easy on the ears, but they are by no means muzak. Beneath the friendly surface, there is conflict: melodies unfold in a state of flux, growing and developing (and sometimes clashing with one another!) even as they are stated for the first time. Fragments are picked apart and grow into their own melodies. The parts are passed from one instrument to another; the violin and ‘cello, of course, have similar roles but the piano provides dramatic contrast. All of this is of course “standard” classical music development; Brahms’ genius seems to be to extend it into what were at the time new territories. It’s all quite fascinating for active listening. The performances are nearly flawless, as one would expect from the all-star performers.

John Cage: Works for Two Keyboards
(Pestova/meyer Piano Duo)
Two contrasting works from two differing periods of Cage's creativity: sparse aleatoric music with an emphasis on silence, and complex rhythms from prepared pianos without a hint of silence. Endlessly fascinating!

Robert Glasper: In My Element
Beautiful, subtle jazz as chamber music. The solos are refined and usually delicate (except for that one manic drum solo under restrained piano chords), and virtuosic without the endless fast runs (listen to how many notes I can play!) favored by some other contemporary jazz artists. Also, a Radiohead song (immediately recognizable) is gently ushered in as a Standard. Beautiful stuff, but with enough substance for repeated listening. This is (thankfully) not “smooth jazz”!

Arianna Savall: Hirundo Maris
There is fairyland in this music. There is also the world of the Arabian Nights, and Middle-Earth, and El Dorado, and Shangri-La, and Camelot, and all those other opalescent places that vanished without a trace into mythology (they never were) but left fragrant traces in our memories. The origin of this music is not mysterious: it's Medieval and Renaissance songs from the Iberian Peninsula ("the South"), Scotland and Norway ("the North") -- but the performances are so beautiful, delicately nuanced, so (both) spiritual and sensuous (so "Elvish", as LOTR fans might say) that we think we are hearing the sounds of a shimmering but long-lost world. Arianna's voice floats effortlessly through webs of notes, and has a much more pleasing quality than that of her famous mother. The instrumentals are likewise gossamer. An occasional anachronism is introduced (dobro, for example), updating the music slightly, but not detracting from the mixed European/Arabic timbres characteristic of the period. Beautiful sounds. Listen to it the next time you're on a trip to Narnia.

Paul Simon: Stranger to Stranger
Innovative instrumentation (instruments by none other than Harry Partch!), catchy tunes, and sometimes seemingly random lyrics make this Simon the master at the height of his songwriting powers. “Wristband” is a great synthesis of groove and social commentary. Worth a listen for Simon fans (and for those, like me, who haven’t necessarily followed his long career.)

Liaisons (Reimagining Sondheim)
(Anthony de Mare)
These are not "arrangements" or "remixes" (where the original song remains more or less intact despite drastic changes in style and accompaniment) but "compositions" (where the original melody, and sometimes the rhythm, are used as the basis for something completely different). There's quite a varitey of styles here, ranging from jazz-brushed impressionism to upbeat minimalism and even a couple of pieces for prepared piano. Many of them are quite beautiful, though expression (rather than obligatory beauty) is what the composers are after. Quite an interesting collection!

Alessandro Striggio: Mass in 40 Parts (Missa Ecco si Beato Giorno)
(I Fagiolini, Robert Hollingworth)
The grand apotheosis of polyphony -- layer upon layer of glorious sound, with a few instrumental surprises.

Tinawiren: Live in Paris
Here, the award-winning Malian Tuareg music group becomes a jam band of the Grateful Dead ilk. The music builds slowly, establishing a groove here, adding a layer there, finally growing into up-tempo jamming (and something close to a driving beat). More academically, much of the music is in various pentatonic modes. This, along with the vocal style, give it a slightly “exotic” (whatever that means) sound to American listeners. Most listeners will not understand the words, of course, though if you read the translations, most of the songs are about overcoming persecution and challenging war with peaceful ideals. Throughout, the audience participation is not only audible, but impassioned. Cheering begins as soon as instrumental intros become recognizable and cheers can be heard during peaks in most songs. …Jamming music? Impassioned audience? Songs about peace? It’s as if the best parts of 1960’s hippiedom have been exported. Or are these universal longings?

After reading this, don't forget to check out the sister blog (about books and fun for "werd nerds"). And, you can read more about music (in a fictional context, not a blog) in my latest novel, Grendul Rising (epic fantasy; Book One of the MadStones Tetralogy). "Put your hands up and step away from the bagpipe!"

Seven More Albums: Seattle Music Including One for Christmas

Some music I've listened to recently that has something to do with Seattle, including two by the Seattle Symphony and one Christmas album. I posted these reviews (recommendations) on the local public library website.

Steve Barsotti: Say Tin-tah-pee-mick
Seattle has a thriving experimental music scene. Case in point: this mysterious, noisy, subtle, lo-fi album. Inhabiting a strange world a little closer to Richard Lerman than Harry Partch, made-up electroacoustic contraptions rattle and hum and buzz and intone against a background of silence or white noise. There is one track that is barely there ("on the threshhold of hearing") and the very next one that should be played as loud as possible ("on the threshhold of pain"). Love it or hate it (I'm in the first group), there is no music quite like this.

Steve Peters: Occasional Music
Not an “album” as such, this is a collection of shorter pieces by one of Seattle’s masters of experimental music and sound installations. There’s a delicate piano piece in the manner of Arvo Pärt; an ambient drone piece in which the binaural beats are actually played (on accordions); and a gamelan piece that, if one listens closely, reveals itself to be an extended riff on a blues progression. The middle four pieces were all composed for choreographed dances; these blend ambient trumpet, improvisations reminiscent of Miles Davis, electronic sounds (sometimes startling), and “folk music” (played on hand percussion and various flutes) from an imaginary culture. The overall effect is “mellow” but somehow vaguely disquieting at the same time. The CD ends with two “ambient” pieces, of which “Circular Lullaby” is particularly fascinating: beautiful, modal melodies can emerge from simply playing several tones, each repeating at a different time interval than the others. I’d recommend this CD heartily for anyone interested in music that’s even slightly off the beaten track, and/or as a good introduction for someone not familiar with Mr. Peters’ music.

Seattle Phonographers Union
Spontaneous musique-concrète made with field recordings unaltered in any way – only the stop and start points and the relative volume are decided by the performers. The result is a fascinating soundscape, at times relaxing, at times vaguely ominous, and at times humorous (there is a bit near the end that’s probably hilarious regardless of one’s musical taste).

Sunn O))): Monoliths and Dimensions
One reviewed described this as “drone metal” and my brain went “TILT!” trying to imagine a fusion of Phill Niblock and Metallica. That would be like abstract realism or the southern north pole. Then I listened to it, and, yup – they really have mixed musical opposites. Like drone music, it’s (sometimes seemingly infinitely) slow, where every new note is a major event. Like metal, it’s made with fuzz guitars and distorted vocals, and sounds best at punishing volume levels. There’s also a ghoulish chorus of Tibetan trumpets and a melodic trombone improvisation, both apparently played by Seattle new-music luminary Stuart Dempster. I should also mention the (unusual for metal) use of (or lack of) percussion: there are no drums, though twice in the second song, all motion ceases to the peal of a single bell. Fun (if perhaps overly dramatic and doom-laden) stuff, both for the uninitiated and the experimental-music nerd.

Heart: Lovemongers Christmas
A very original Christmas album, with several new songs and new takes on old favorites. Heart (known here as "The Lovemongers") sounds the way they played and sang on their early albums ("Dreamboat Annie", "Little Queen", "Dog and Butterfly"), with a lot of acoustic work, subtle vocal pyrotechnics, and some surprising chords and rhythms. Don't play this as background music for a Christmas party; it demands too much close listening for that.

Berio: Sinphonia / Boulez: Notations / Ravel: La Valse
Excerpts from three concerts by the Seattle Symphony are on this CD -- I was at all three of them! Berio's "Sinfonia" begins with startling dissonances and the weird stream-of-consciousness amplified pseudo-pop vocals (here provided by Roomful of Teeth) -- this was "new" enough to cause one couple who were sitting in front of me to leave the concert after only ten minutes in (and someone else behind me to comment "I have very little tolerance for this kind of thing" -- to which I snapped, "I have very little tolerance for those think that this IS a kind of thing" -- meaning that this is an utterly unique piece.) The centerpiece is the psychedelic "remix" of the Mahler Second (in turn a reworking of an earlier Mahler piece) overlaid with Samuel Beckett words -- reaching a tragic climax with "all of this can't stop the wars, can't make the old young again or lower the price of bread -- Say it again, louder!" and Mahler's fortissimo "resurrection chord" (resurrection is not possible in Beckett's nihilist universe). The CD then retraces avant-garde French music back, though Boulez' bombastic "Notations" (for the largest orchestra I've ever seen -- when I saw them play it, it was kind of comical to see them scale down for a Mahler symphony) and Ravel's spicy "La Valse", which is of course no longer "avant-garde" and quite a popular piece. The Ravel was as startling when first played as the Berio still seems to be to some, and it ends with a crashing conclusion that brings this CD to a fiery close. The whole CD is a masterpiece, but be forewarned: this is not symphonic music as usual.

Messiaen: Poems Pour Mi / Trois petites liturgies de la présence divine
The Seattle Symphony, conducted by Ludovic Morlot, continues its award-winning series of CDs of modern French composers, here supplemented by soprano Jane Archibald, the Northwest Boychoir, and two instrumental soloists. This is sensuous music, full of rich chords (often with unexpected dissonances that paradoxically add beauty, “like a bee in a flower” in Messiaen’s own words), meandering melodies, and in the second piece, literal birdsongs played on the piano (the instrument that probably sounds least like a bird!). The modernist Stravinskyan edge has been subsumed into a post-Debussy lusciousness. There is at the same time a religious holiness to the sound. The first piece is a collection of religious/love songs; the second more obviously “sacred” but still couched in the terms of sensuality (Messiaen has gotten the point of the Song of Solomon.) The listener may at first be confused by this duality (and by the “spooky” sounds of the Ondes Martenot, an early electronic instrument that sounds close to a Theramin), yet further listens reveal the “big picture” of it all. In this context, that “Theremin” sound is merely part of the delicious texture. All in all, I recommend this highly.

...And ten more albums (that I've listened to recently)

Again, I originally posted these reviews on the local public library's website.

Brian Eno: Apollo
It’s nice to hear the old recordings again, especially with the volume levels corrected (on another, older, CD edition, the guitar pieces – originally side 2 of the vinyl record – were jarringly louder than the synthesizer pieces). There are moments of celestial beauty here, as well as mysterious electronic soundscapes that suggest, to my ear at least, underwater rather than outer space. The second CD ("For All Mankind"), however, doesn’t add much; Eno’s original soundtrack music was fairly interesting and experimental, while the added CD is more overtly “easy listening”, borderline elevator music. I rate this “three stars”: five stars for the first (original) soundtrack and one for the additional material.

Ballake Sissoko: At Peace
The delicate, gently swaying strains of the West African kora (with other instruments on occasion). On one level it's great (and peaceful, per the title) background music, but if you listen to it only that way you'll miss much of the subtlety and sophistication. Like Bach, this is mathematically "perfect" music that leaves room for intense beauty (or perhaps its beauty is because of its mathematical perfection). Listen for the interplay of main and accompanying melodies, and how both seem to escape from the ever-present rhythms. I would definitely attend a chamber music recital include a selection or two of kora music...!

Wayne Shorter: Emanon
What appears to be a graphic novel is in fact a beautifully illustrated, colorful reason for nearly three hours of labyrinthine, spellbinding music. This is a mixed-media project. The CD "booklet" contains the graphic novel: the adventures of the eponymous superhero and "rogue philosopher" in a multiverse in which all planets appear to be inhabited by humans in some kind of crisis of creativity. The illustrations are striking, but there isn't really much of a plot. Emanon (“No Name” backwards) fights a number of monsters (including the final one that metamorphoses into a beautiful woman whom we sense is his soul-mate), but mostly he gives his creativity to people. He is a metaphor for the music, which is on three CDs in the back of the booklet. These are Mr. Shorter's compositions. His sax is joined by the piano, bass, and drums of three other capable jazz musicians. The virtuoso duet work of Danilo Perez (piano) and Brian Blade (drums) is particularly interesting and satisfying (if a little unusual). The pieces feature angular, open melodies, often epic and "symphonic" as much as "jazzy" in nature (one thinks of Copland as well as Coltrane). The first CD supplements the massive feel with an actual orchestra (albeit a chamber ensemble). The compositions themselves are very complex in form. Concise but ecstatic solos (longer in the "live" performances) alternate with "classical" development sections, but these two musics merge. One becomes the other, in the same way that the monster is the woman in the graphic novel. This is beautiful, epic stuff, though in the end it is the music that holds one's attention more than the graphic novel -- and that seems to be the point.

Maurice Ravel: L'enfant et les sortilèges, Shéhérazade; Alborada del gracioso
Saitō Kinen Orchestra (with soloists), conducted by Seiji Ozawa
"The Child and the Magic Spells", for the listener, is comical; for the child in the story, it's a nightmare -- until he learns his lesson. Ravel's mastery of harmony and orchestration comes through, perhaps more than his command of melody: all of the characters have their own music and instrumentation. In fact, the orchestration is so spectacular that the listener hears instruments that aren't there: for example, the opening oboe and flute sound exactly like the Chinese pipes (the sheng), though that instrument is not in the orchestra. The comical singing is overblown at times (the clock singing "ding ding ding ding ding" gets grating), but these touches of extravagance help to tell the tale convincingly. Watch out for the cats. "Shéhérazade" is another fairy tale, though it's a far calmer affair. We're treated to languid impressionist harmonies and beautiful melodic lines that seem to float to their destination rather than get there by conventional melodic development. Ms. Graham's performance of these is elegant and refined, in contrast to the phantasmagorical effects of the singing in "L'enfant". There's also a phantom gamelan (more instruments that aren't there!) somewhere in the first movement. Lastly, "Alborada del gracioso" is instrumental and seems tacked on at the end of this CD to fill up time, though it's a good reading and performance of this orchestral showpiece.

Kristen Chenoweth: For the Girls
How many different voices can one singer have?

Goat Rodeo Sessions
Stuart Duncan, Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer, Chris Thile
A beautiful collection of "bluegrass" Americana compositions, played with restraint and very little of the "listen to how many notes I can play really fast!" show-offishness that is often the bane of the genre; and yet the technique by these master musicians is impeccable (as is their expressiveness on their instruments). Brilliant!

Keith Green: The Ministry Years
I remember a lot of these songs. Much commercial "Christian music" was a wasteland back then (late 1970's - early 1980's -- see my review of Rich Mullins' "Songs") but these, like Mullins, are well-written, personal, and catchy (they tend to sound like Elton John). That some of them are cloying or banal is probably beside the point: Green was after earworms that would play Scripture passages or encouraging moral lessons in one's head, replacing the overly sexualized or violent lyrics of much pop music. It's nice to look back at these songs as an early way to counter such negativity.

Tanya Tagaq: Retribution
This album both treats and subjects the listener to a series of dark, primordial soundscapes (and one more or less conventional rap song), many nominally about nature extracting revenge on humans for environmental degradation. (A video of the title track of this album can be seen on Youtube, and it is genuinely frightening as Ms. Tagaq assumes the persona of a vengeful wolf-spirit.) These are not "songs" or "compositions" in any usual sense. Most tracks are probably improvised in several levels of recording with added layers of electronics in post-production, though this is nothing like a "jam band". The primary sound is that of Inuit throat-singing, with occasional bits of Tuvan throat-singing and other "extended" and avant-garde vocal techniques. The result is sometimes surprisingly close to Australian didgeridoo, showing a commonality in musics from half a world apart. Scary, hypnotic, and paradoxically tranquil in places, this is somehow "traditional" music akin to Sunn O)))'s non-tradition, and is certainly worth a listen. Yet it is not for the timid listener.

Ives: Symphony No. 4
Seattle Symphony Orchestra and Chorale, conducted by Ludovic Morlot
The Seattle Symphony does it again with this recording of one of the US' greatest composers. The 4th Symphony is, as always, an epic of (sometimes hilariously) off-kilter Americana (with a little Brahms thrown in for good measure), and "The Unanswered Question" is as beautiful, mystical, and mysterious as always. Highly recommended, and please listen with the volume turned up.

Arvo Part: Tabula Rasa
This seminal album still sounds as fresh as when it was released. It did indeed begin with a "blank slate", and then went on the completely alter the way contemporary classical music was viewed.

If you're interested in reading something that isn't about music, check out the sister blog of this one (it's about books and about words), or read the novels of my "Tond" series (high fantasy) or my short stories: Silkod of the Drenn (in JournE) and The Fourth Source (in Summer of Speculation: Villains).

Five (or Six) Books about Music

Short reviews of books about music; I posted these on the local public library's website.

Before I start, though: a self-promo. My novel Grendul Rising (MadStones Tetralogy, Book One) features a lot of music: music used (iterally) as a weapon in chapter one, music in the context of nature in chapter two, and, later on, in the midst of a riot (I'm paraphrasing so it makes sense out of context), "Put your hands up and step away from the bagpipe!" (No, I don't actually dislike bagpipes.)

Okay, on to the books that are "really" about music.

Listen to This
by Alex Ross
A great collection of essays about music. The author not only talks about the when and where of music (including interviews with living artists), but goes deep into its analysis and aesthetics. The book helped me reconnect with some of my old favorites (Schubert, Cecil Taylor, Radiohead, John Luther Adams) as well as appreciate some that I haven't particularly liked before (Brahms, Verdi, Björk, Bob Dylan). It was also interesting to read his analysis of the reoccurrence of a particular motif throughout musical history, discussion of modern Chinese music, debunking of the Mozart myth, and the fact that "classical music is dying!" has been a trope for 700 years.

Haunted Weather: Music, Silence and Memory
by David Toop
A brief, detailed (not opposite terms in this case!) overview of the state of music in the early 21st century. Among other things, there are chapters about improvisation, about composing with silence, about film music (including the dread-inducing soundscape of “Alien” and late 20th-century collaborations between Teshigahara and Takemitsu); about extremely large-scale compositions (one piece lasting more than 600 years, one lasting 1000 years), and about the incorporation of pre-recorded material into new works (including such use in both ambient and rap music, which would otherwise appear to be opposites). Mr. Toop seems to have had experience in all of these areas, and his knowledge is encyclopedic – the bibliography and discography themselves would keep the reader/listener occupied for months.

The Noise of Time
by Julian Barnes
Interesting biographical novel about the life of composer Shostakovitch and the ruinous effects of totalitarianism on art, told in flashbacks and stark but strangely beautiful prose. Makes me want to listen to the music again.

Future Sounds: The Story of Electronic Music from Stockhausen to Skrillex
By David Stubbs
Not so much an overview as a series of detailed biographies and critiques of certain artists and their work, this is a fascinating book. All styles of electronic music are covered, from the most experimental avant-garde to the most mainstream pop (the author does not fall into the common trap of labelling all electronic music “experimental”). However, this book is overwritten; reading it is an exhausting slog through a swamp of breathless superlatives and affectedly hip verbosity. That said, it does make a compelling case for revisiting this music.

Capturing Music: The Story of Notation
by Thomas Forrest Kelly
Fascinating, witty explanation of what at first seems an impenetrable topic (earlier methods of writing music were different in kind, not just in style, from today's scores and sheet music). The terms are explained: finally, it's easy to know the difference between a neume and a note (besides how it looks on a page) — as well as how a virga differs from a punctum and a breve from a semibreve, what a "perfection" was, and why the 14th-century pop-culture antihero Fauvel was always drawn with the head of a horse. The whole thousand-year-plus history is explained, mostly in its formative centuries, along with various geniuses (Guido the Monk, Philippe de Vitry) who invented ways of notating specific pitch or rhythm. There's also some commentary by the so-called Anonymous 4 (not the vocal group who are named after him), and the book ends with a complex operatic score: one page of "Wozzek" by Alban Berg. Since this system of notation was invented in Europe (mostly in France), all of the examples come from there; it would have been nice to see how the system has been adapted to write non-Euorpean music such as jazz and gamelan (as well as contemporary variations like graphic scores). But this history is interesting and explanatory as far as it goes. A side note: the accompanying CD is intended just as examples, but it is quite beautiful and I recommend listening to it on its own.

Five More Albums: Pulitzer Prize-Winning Music

I posted these reviews on the local public library website: CD’s (albums) of Pulitzer Prize-winning music, whether or not the artist/composer saw it as an “album” or a stand-alone piece.

Elliott Carter: String Quartets – Pulitzer 1960 (for no. 2) and 1973 (for no. 3)
Juliard String Quartet
It begins with a loud, angular declamation from the cello (with a single viola note) and proceeds from there. Unlike some composers who clothe their modernism in lush orchestration (Boulez) or tranquility derived from silence (Cage) or architectural aggression (Xenakis), this is the unvarnished stuff. It’s stark. It’s austere. It is recorded without a whiff of reverb. It is not music of angst, as some would have such “modern” music to be; rather, maybe it expresses little emotion at all. It’s pure mathematics. As a listener, unraveling the complicated formulae that govern the melodic lines and the rhythms is exhausting, maybe impossible – and ultimately extremely rewarding; an intellectual exercise that leads finally to understanding. With that understanding comes the realization that much of what I have just said (stark, austere, non-emotional) is actually not true at all…! There are richly contrasting moments, such as the slow quiet music in the First Quartet that keeps getting overlaid with louder, faster variations on the same sequences. There’s that final quasi-resolve of the Pulitzer-Prize winning Third Quartet (so complex that the liner notes list what’s happening in which speaker on your stereo!) where everything comes together in dissonant but final triple-stops. There are the occasional excursions into pizzicato textures. And above all, there are the rhythms – incomprehensible at first hearing, later resolving into obvious meters – some of them actually groove as they morph and mutate and crosshatch one another. Yes, it’s complicated. Yes, it’s difficult. Yes, it’s far more beautiful than you’d think at first. Give this a listen, and once you’re past the initial trepidation, don’t complain to me that you’re hooked.

John Luther Adams: Become Ocean – Pulitzer 2014
Seattle Symphony conducted by Ludovic Morlot
Listen to it as backgroung sound: it's a pretty soundscape. Listen to it closely: it's a complex layering of wave upon wave of contrapuntal detail. Wagnerian in scope but intimate in detail, this is satisfying music that stands up to repeated listening.
A sad story: I had a chance to hear the world premiere of this piece, played by the Seattle Symphony conducted by Ludovic Morlot, but for some (forgotten) reason I decided to go to some other concert instead (I don’t even remember what that other concert was). Later I found out that this piece had not only won a Pulitzer but also a Grammy (for the recording). It’s kind of like the time I had a chance to personally witness a comet crash into Jupiter (Astronomy club, Berkeley, CA.) I missed that one too because I simply forgot about it until after they’d carted off all of the telescopes.

Julia Wolff: Anthracite Fields – Pulitzer 2015
This large-scale contemporary classical composition (Pulitzer Prize winner 2015) chronicles the world of coal mining. Beginning with a "horror movie soundtrack" and litany of names of people who've died in mines, it proceeds through a number of moods and styles -- from despair to hope for a better life, though there is some doubt to the validity of this hope because the words are drawn from an advertisement. Throughout, the vocal lines become progressively complex and interwoven as the words become more minimalist. This is a very emotional work, good for active listening. Do not attempt to listen to it while doing something else.

Henry Threadgill and Zooid: In for a penny, in for a pound – Pulitzer 2016
This is charmingly disorienting music. It’s jazz-fusion, certainly, but not jazz fused with rock or funk; it’s jazz fused with, …what…?. It’s modernist (or even serialist) classical chamber music. It’s improvised. It’s thoroughly carefully composed. Each of the two CD’s feature one short piece followed by two longer ones. In all, notes scatter in a whimsical manner, seemingly without logic, and yet the notes all go together in the most logical of ways. In some sections, it’s difficult to distinguish who’s playing the melody and who’s playing the rhythm – or is there really a difference? The longer pieces consist of strings of shorter sections; careful listening reveals that some of these sections repeat with different instruments or in different meters or with different parts interposed. The titles sound “classical” in the manner of contemporary chamber music, stating the title and the instrumentation (for example, “Dosepic, for cello”) but these designations are only a general guideline. The eponymous instrument does more improvising than the others, and usually has one unaccompanied solo, but the others are present in the piece. All in all, this is more Elliot Carter than Miles Davis. That is neither a positive nor negative statement; it merely indicates the style of the music. I could also describe it as a kaleidoscope of notes. I’ve had fun listening to it, but it may take several listens to comprehend it fully. Again, that's neither a positive nor negative statement; the music is captivating even as I’m waiting.

Kendrick Lamar: Damn – Pulitzer 2018
“I was takin’ a walk the other day…” And so this begins. As expected from the title, (and in contrast to that innocent opening), this musical "walk the other day" isn't nice. Nobody has ever gotten a Pulitzer in music for writing inoffensive little songs. (Think I'm wrong here? Consider these from previous awards: Julia Wolff’s “Anthracite Fields” is about deaths of coal miners; Winton Marsalis’ “Blood on the Fields” is about slavery; and George Crumb’s startling anti-symphony “Echoes of Time and the River” – which caused a near riot in Seattle in the 1960’s – is about mortality in general. Even the purely instrumental works, such as those by Henry Threadgill or Elliot Carter, are edgy even though they aren't "about" anything.) In the case of “Damn”, the music itself is not shocking in any way; it’s well-composed hip-hop numbers with tunes and chord progressions straight out of jazz standards (and, oddly, few samples or beat-boxes). There are beautiful backup vocals in tight harmony. In fact, much of the album (over the deep subwoofing, obligatory in hip-hop) is understated and often quite pretty – I can’t really imagine this music booming full-blast from a souped-up car cruising the avenue on a Friday evening. It’s the lyrics that are startling. At first listen the words may seem like nothing but a collection of F-bombs and N-bombs. One is tempted to turn it off and comment that it’s no different from all of those other records where the swearing is merely passed from one rapper to another without anyone in the middle thinking about what’s actually being said. That is not the case here. First of all, not every song has the “swears”, and those that do have them for a reason: this is about the despair of the urban poor in the US, and the anger of one constantly exposed to bigotry and racism in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. As stated in “Yah” (the third song), even the Bible is (mis)quoted to support continued oppression (this along with the refrain “ain’t nobody prayin’ for me” which occurs in several of the songs). Most of the songs are narratives. In many, the “characters” in the stories care for one another even as they admit appalling situations and, sometimes, shortcomings. The song “loyalty” is about this. In a linguistic slight-of-hand, “loyalty” is often pronounced so it sounds like “laity” – the “regular” people in this case – or “larity”, maybe a coined word that could mean "the quality of being a lariat” and hence a trap (even loyalty could be a trap!). In the end, this “takin’ a walk the other day” comes full circle. The blind woman in that first tale loses her life at the hands of someone trying to “help” her – and we (listeners) are left feeling guilty for being entertained by the nasty surprise. By the end of the record, we realize that it may have been us (or our political institutions) who supplied that nasty surprise.

Okay, I’m at the end of this, and since the Pulitzer isn’t entirely classical anymore, I’d like to retroactively nominate two non-classical works that should have won some kind of award.
John Coltrane: A Love Supreme (one of the best jazz albums ever, in my opinion)
Simon and Garfunkel: Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme (the album, not just the song; a high point for creativity in “pop” music even if it is nearly 60 years old now.)

Also, at the end of this, a self-promo: Check out my author website. You'll find links to all my books there, including the "Tond" novels and a book derived from this very blog.

Ten More Albums: Silk Road Journeys and Social Music

These are reviews I posted on the website of the local public library.

Hans Abrahamsen: Let Me Tell You
(Barbara Hannigan, soprano; Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks; Andris Nelsons, conductor)
Shimmering, silvery tones from the half-light of dreams: this is opera of the imagination.

John Luther Adams: Become Desert
(Seattle Symphony; Ludovic Morlot, conductor)
This sequel to the Pulitzer-winning "Become Ocean" is the essence of symphonic ambience; with complicated (written) delay effects and extended techniques on the instruments, much of it sounds more electronic than orchestral. At any rate, it's gorgeous, and despite its title that suggests drying up or becoming a wasteland, it's also positive and triumphant. Worth as many listens as you can find time for.

Jon Batiste: Social Music
A fun album of virtuoso performances of original jazz compositions and some standards (including the Star-Spangled Banner!) in a number of styles (New Orleans, ragtime, Gospel, blues-jazz, free jazz, tango-infused Latin jazz, swing, Rhythm and Blues, 70's fusion, and a fusion of stride piano and Franz Liszt at the end), brought to you by the band (and its leader) from the Late Show with Stephen Colbert. There are hints of Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea and Hiromi, and the blues number is loud and forceful enough to remind me of Led Zeppelin despite its completely different instrumentation. But, despite the catalogue of different styles, it all holds together.

Ella (Fitzgerald) at Zardi’s
There must be some criminal conspiracy that kept these incredible recordings hidden away in the vault. These performances (by arguably the greatest jazz vocalist of the twentieth century) sizzle, and showcase Ms. Fitzgerald's smooth voice and skill at improvising. "Bernie's Tune" is the pure essence of vocal improvisation; her scat singing is both tightly disciplined and out of control ecstatic.

Heinz Holliger and György Kurtág: Zweigesprache
The solo oboe (with occasional other instruments) presents a strange, stark, and beguiling sound-world, light-years removed from the more familiar chamber music sound of the string quartet or violin and piano. Although all "contemporary", the pieces vary from strident or mysterious atonality to lilting folk tunes. The artistry is, of course, spectacular.

I’m with Her: See You Around
(Sarah Jarosz, Aoife O'Donovan, Sara Watkins)
The recording is beautiful and the performances are top-notch, as is to be expected from the line-up of this band. However, there isn't much variety in the "sound" of the band. The harmony singing is overused and sometimes a little insistent, reminding me at times of those 1970's rock records where every member of the band played during every second of every song (I'm looking at you, Boston). That said, there's quite a lot of variety between the songs themselves; instrumentation changes subtly, there are unexpected chord progressions ("See You Around" cycles between three keys, all in major but giving the effect of minor; "Ryland" is almost chromatic). Though obviously bluegrass, hints of other genres occasionally surface: more than once I'm reminded of vintage jazz/swing and the Andrews Sisters. The lyrics are deep expressions of the human experience, related metaphorically from everyday occurrences and little "slices of life", though few of them are particularly memorable. Supergroup, yes, but I think I prefer the individual members as solo artists: this is certainly not bad, but at the same time it could be better.

Isata Kenneh-Mason: Romance
These are great, nuanced performances of works by the great composer Clara Schumann. As often with music from the early Romantic period (i.e. Mendelssohn, Schubert, and Clara's husband Robert Schumann), these are friendly on the surface but full of complex compositional techniques that can be analyzed for hours. Not that it matters; listening is probably enough and this is a gorgeous recording.

The Knights: The Ground Beneath our Feet
This is one of those "new school" classical records that takes a clue from the pop world: the musicians form a "band" that produces "albums". This is a live recording that makes a beautiful and eclectic sonic experience, though there is a little trouble with volume consistency. There are two pieces that are familiar from the classical repertoire, from the 18th and 20th centuries respectively (Bach and Stravinsky), and three new pieces. The Bach C-minor Concerto (for oboe, violin and ensemble) sounds a little lackluster, though the Stravinsky "Dumbarton Oaks" concerto, which is made of jazzy syncopated riffs off of a style that would otherwise be close to Bach, is performed with such enthusiasm that I found myself dancing. The two new pieces frame these familiar works: Reich's "Duet" is a dreamy introduction, while the Concerto for Santur, Violin and Orchestra (co-composed by Siamak Aghaei and The Knights' Collin Jacobsen) is a larger work that sometimes uses unexpected sounds (such as what appears to be strumming, guitar-style, on the santur — a kind of hammered dulcimer). The last track is something completely unexpected: the song "Fade Away" is treated to a tour of worldwide musical styles. This will either be a plus or a minus depending on the listener. Each listener will probably bring away something different from this entire CD as well.

Radiohead: A Moon-Shaped Pool
This is a little different from some of the others by Radiohead that I've heard. This is Indie-Rock at its most dreamlike. Etherial and hypnotically ambient, with lush orchestrations beneath (it begins with a 'cello solo), this appears to be a meeting between Radiohead and Sigur Rós. It's also a blending of expectations: some of the string arrangements use note-bending and even microtones, the way a guitar solo might. Interesting and mysteriously beautiful.

Silk Road Journeys—When Strangers Meet
(Silk Road Ensemble, led by Yo-Yo Ma)
Epic music from the vastness of an ancient continental landmass. Though most of the music is "fusion" to some degree, there is a general movement of east to west (with a couple of pieces from the far northwest added for variety).

Stockhausen's Piano Pieces Seen from Within, but First: A Little Discussion on Serialism

There was a discussion about serialism on Facebook last week; I found it interesting and asked the participants if I could post it on this blog. They all said yes, so I’ll post it below (names changed except for “me”). It was inspired by a cartoon (by Kim Krans) of a rabbit undergoing various musical effects. And, in turn, it (the discussion) inspired me to take a look at a set of prose-poems that I had written some years ago; I had originally intended to do one of these for each of all of the Stockhausen piano pieces but the longer later ones didn’t seem to work as well in linguistic form.

ME: (Incidentally, "dissonance", as depicted there, is actually "serialism".)
LF: "Serialism?" I always thought of "serial" music as just being any music considered in terms of temporal order, not ever a style or movement or any other kind of ism.
ME: I meant the style like Boulez, early Stockhausen, etc., where pitches, durations, volume, timbre, etc., are all "serialized" or treated as blocks seperate from others, and subject to mathematical permutations. Like the rabbit parts in the picture.
LF: It seems a shame to waste such a useful word on a mere style name.
BH: Babbitt beat Boulez and Stockhausen to it, by several years, and saw things through to deeper depths. Odd how Americans are still conditioned to defer to Europeans in matters of “classical” music.
LF: But (per the rumors) Boulez and Stockhausen had CIA money behind them to combat what the USSR was spending on culture-propaganda.
ME: At last! A conspiracy theory that makes sense!
BH: A world in which countries’ spy agencies focused on covertly promoting new music would be a better world than this one.
ME: Concerning Babbitt: Boulez and Stockhausen were the first that came to mind; maybe because they have better-known pieces, to me, anyway.
BH: That’s my point. You’re hardly unusual there. The derivative Europeans get better PR than the American originator.
BH: Concerning the conspiracy theory: it reminds me of the Thai government quietly subsidizing Thai restaurants. Competing via deliciousness, not bombs.
LF: The "Babbitt" strand of American serialism is really a different animal than anything I have heard coming out of Europe, in that it is far more interested in the exploring the ramifications of the "math" involved.
ME: I have a similar take on it. It seems more "intellectual" and less "emotional"; that's neither a negative nor a positive statement. ...Then again, it that's true, then Elliott Carter's serial compositions are European...?!
LF: Elliott Carter is a whole other thingy than either of them.
BH: I’ve never thought of Boulez as emotional. Nor really Stockhausen, unless “space alien” is an emotion. I hear far more emotion in Philomel, and more wit in many other Babbitt pieces, than I hear in most of the European strand.…
ME: Stockhausen could very well be a space alien... lol
ME: Stockhausen's Piano Pieces IX and X are clearly emotional, at least to me.
BH: Well, the thesis of The Composer as Specialist is that “advanced” composers are engaged in cutting-edge research. Babbitt saw himself very much heading a musical vanguard. A difference is that he sought financial support from university…
ME: This "serial" discussion is getting interesting. Do any of you mind if I post it on my blog about music?
BH and LF: I’m OK with you including this in your blog, I suppose, if it is clear that my comment about CIA funding is rumor only.
ME: IF I'd known this discussion was going to take place, I would have labelled the bunny in the cartoon a "Babbitt Rabbitt".

Listen: Stockhausen's Piano Pieces I - IV

Stockhausen's PIano Pieces I - IV: From the Inside

I
Soft, loud, upward cascade of splintersounds, impressions come into focus. Hazes, blue-green, red cuts into opacity, shatters clearness.
I emerge into consciousness. I remember little from that time before times. Maybe there was something blue. Maybe it was yellow-orange. Was it shapeless? Or did it have a form, coalesced from the void, or from other forms? Maybe there was a bridge. Or a tree or a stone. Or was it a tunnel, or it was a floor, upside-down and sideways.
Sounds. Dark resonances. Bright bells peal. Gongs. Clusters of clangs and clip-clops, shadows of echoes.
Lights. Flickers. All colors. Turn off and on, bright, dim, inverted noises, vibrations are sounds are frequencies of hue. I hear and see only a little. Senses are not differentiated. I know nothing yet. I wait.

II
Learning. Hesitant. Reverberations come together. Jangles. One note here, two there.
One of those notes is me. Maybe I am a high C-sharp, brilliant and shining against the others. Or I am a low E-flat, dark and shadowy, deep in the dreamworld of protosound. It does not matter now, which note I am. Just know that I am one of the notes in these pieces.
The sounds are random. Or not random. These pieces are complex, mathematical beyond the perceptions of the ear. It is for that reason that I am learning. Comprehension grows as clang-clusters disentangle.

III
I become aware of other notes in a zigzag stream. I join them stepping upwards, sideways, turned around, downwards, louder, quieter. Then I retrace my steps.

IV
Remembrances. Hesitant. Resonances grow apart. Jingling. Two tones here, one there.
Others of those notes are not me, but I don’t know them yet. Maybe one is a high E-flat, glittering and glaring against the others. Or it is a low C-sharp, but bright and luminous, shallow in the waking world of aftersound. It does not matter now, what notes they are.
The sounds are not random, or they are random. These pieces are complicated, algebraic or geometrical beyond the sensing of the ear. It is for that reason that I am still learning. Understanding grows as cluster-clangs entangle.

Some business:

Check out this blog's sister, The BookWords Blogg. It's about books (i.e. book reviews) and about words. Or is that obvious?

Ten more albums: Wind, Beauty, and Blues in a Kaleidoscope Superior

Well, it’s been a couple of years since I’ve posted anything here, and circumstances are still such that I can’t really go out an hear live music, let alone review it. So here are ten more albums I’ve heard in the last couple of weeks.

Count Basie: Good Morning Blues
Ancestral to a lot of today’s music (both “classical” and “popular”), and extremely creative. The title track features piano and trumpet solos that stretch the expressiveness of the instruments. The curators of this two-record (vinyl) set also set it up in a way seldom seen in anthologies of short pieces: the album as a whole has a “shape”. The songs are not only arranged chronologically (though partially), but: side one has big band numbers, side two has piano with bass and drums, side three starts to bring in other instruments in small combos, and side four (strangely labelled “Record Two Side Two”, a different system than the other three) begins with small combos but gradually brings back the big band. The last two pieces are for a very big (and loud) orchestra; a grand finale. It’s as if the Count himself planned this out as a multi-movement evening-long work, which he may have. Throughout, nearly everything is based on the familiar blues riffs, but everything keeps going in unexpected and often beautiful ways.

Miles Davis: Pangaea
Miles Davis and other jazz greats created this electric band that is a rarity: a jam band that doesn’t meander. Or maybe it meanders in the best possible way. The two 45-minute pieces are partially composed and probably conducted; pauses and shifts are coordinated and each improvised solo knows exactly when to stop. The result is a journey through a multifaceted soundscape (it’s fitting that the two tracks and the album are named after landscapes): driving rock-funk leads to magical skeins of African balafon; a flute floats over a web of hushed percussion and evolves into metal guitar. Listen several times: at first it’s like an adventure without a compass; by the second or third you’ll have an overall map but the moment-by-moment details are still surprising.

Toumani Diabate: Mande Variations
The delicate sounds of the kora: auditory dewdrops on an early morning spiderweb. If one listens closely, there are two koras and two styles of music: one, traditional pieces with long non-strophic melodies over ostinato accompaniments; two, freeform neo-impressionist improvisations played on a metal-stringed kora that resonates like a Celtic harp. Both are delicate, transparent, and beautiful.

Earthsuit: Kaleidoscope Superior
This little-known album of (Christian) reggae-rock (from 2000) is worth a revisit: it’s more than the boy band that it appears. Lyrics are often obscure but full of references; rhythms are off-meters as often as not (linking this to older “prog rock”); chord structures are derived from jazz standards. Snippets of Steve Reich minimalism complete the stylistic fusion. Somehow it all holds together and has a recognizable “sound”: a kaleidoscope superior with all the same hues.

Ensemble Organum (conducted by Marcel Pérés): Carmina Burana (The Passion Play)
The Carmina Burana manuscript doesn’t consist entirely of bawdy drinking songs; this “Gregorian” retelling of the crucifixion of Jesus is also there (though one bawdy song does manage to appear, as sung by Mary Magdalene pre-conversion). As always, Ensemble Organum’s interpretation is likely to be controversial: there is of course no particular evidence exactly when Gregorian chant evolved into the way it sounds presently, and no particular evidence how it sounded before then — so thirteenth-century chant (which was already a thousand-year tradition by that time) is open to interpretation. Here it’s given an “Eastern Orthodox” makeover with what’s been termed “Middle Easter warbling”: improvisational melismas overlaying the melodies and syllables of the chant. Recorded in a cathedral, a cavernous resonant space and the “authentic” location for this music, it results in lovely and evocative (and sometimes quite forceful!) echoes from a bygone century. This is especially true in the rare passages where the single melodic lines merge into harmony. The “storyline” cuts off before the Resurrection, emphasizing the sacrifice, leading into the possibility of later music in the same manner.

Morton Feldman: Why Patterns? Crippled Symmetry (Eberhard Blum, Nils Vigeland and Jan Williams)
Tiny gestures expand into giant canvasses of sound. Resonances emerge from, rail against, contain, and return to silence. Rhythms overlay in complex patterns. Overall, very quiet — yet very loud in context. This atonal minimalist music creates its own atmosphere and its own aesthetic. At the end, all reduces to a single note, lingering in a light-filled void, trailing into nothing and everything.

Haydn: Prussian Quartets (Tokyo Quartet)
At first listening: merely charming. The second or third time through: there’s extreme expression and complexity lurking beneath that “simple” exterior. The more you listen, the more you hear; the more you hear, the more you get drawn in. Two of my favorites are the very first track in the set (the first movement of Quartet no. 36), with its unexpected syncopations, and the very last track in the set (the fourth movement of Quartet no. 41); that quick repeated note on one of the violins anchors the piece through a series of episodes (some say it imitates the calling of a frog; I’m more inclined to hear it as a birdcall mixed with the buzzing of bees). Elsewhere there are charming melodies (often only a single, unfolding melody containing its own key-changes; a variation on the usually bi-melodic sonata form) and delicate nuances, played perfectly.

Photon Swim Break: Hazard II: Wind
Not particularly “hazardous”, this is dark ambient music derived from field recordings and phonography. The opening is particularly striking, where wave and wind sounds are processed to release their overtones (I am Not Sitting in a Room; Release the Kraken!) in a gradual accumulation of resonance.

Ryuichi Sakamoto: Beauty
There are plenty of examples of mixing (American or British Isles) folk music with rock and pop; here is another possibility. Japanese min’yo (a traditional style closely related to taiko drumming) mixes just as well with “pop” as other folk musics. Always surprising and often beautiful, and a proof (if you need another) that heterophony combines with chord-changes without a problem. The shamisen seems, here, to have been created to be a background rhythm instrument under keyboards and vocals. (There are also a couple of Afropop-fusion tracks in the middle, for which I have the same comments minus the shamisen.) Those positive statements aside, though, several of the songs have inane, pointless lyrics; and the “Chinese” version of Barber’s “Adagio for Strings” (played on the er-hu) sounds forced, particularly since they didn’t bother to re-tune the two instruments to match.

Word of Mouth Chorus: Rivers of Delight
One of only a handful of professional recordings of the American tradition of shape-note hymn singing, a loud, enthusiastic style of church music not particularly related to the more familiar Gospel music. The chorus sounds a little too polished at times (this is, in its original form, rough music), but delicate (!) beauty is often the result. The occasional solo passages are particularly exquisite.

Reviews of Two Books on Music: "Music After the Fall" by Tim Rutherford-Johnson, and "From a Broken Bottle Traces of Perfume Still Emanate" by Nathaniel Mackey

I found these two books in the public library and had a lot of time to read them during the coronavirus pandemic. They are both on the topic of experimental music, though experimental in different ways, and the books themselves are quite different. (I also left both of these reviews on the library website.)

"Music After the Fall" by Tim Rutherford-Johnson There has been a change in the zeitgeist of popular music recently. When I was in high school in the 1970’s any music older than the Beatles was taboo (and any newer music that wasn’t rock was equally taboo). All that has changed. With the advent of hip-hop and its sampling and use of the turntable as an instrument, older music is available (and often re-purposed), and kids today are as likely to listen to Led Zeppelin and even Glen Miller as they are to Drake. (My parents’ or grandparents’ music – unthinkable to my generation!) What Mr. Rutherford-Johnson has done in this book is chronicle that same change of culture in the (previously academic) world of contemporary classical music since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Once secluded in the proverbial ivory tower with mostly atonal compositions that could be understood on their own (as music) but seldom were given a chance to be so, “modern” classical has entered (or perhaps infiltrated) the commercial music scene. The borders are porous now. What began with various forms of “tonal” minimalism and ECM’s groundbreaking Arvo Pärt recordings in the 1980’s has continued to the present. The author presents all of the music’s multiple facets (and there are many!) without any preconceptions about what is “commercial” or “academic”. Likewise, he withholds judgement about the integrity of such a blurring (given the hostility of the classical establishment to “pop” music through much of the 20th century). All major movements and trends are covered, including some that were probably invented by the author to classify or at least investigate works that previously seemed orphaned in their own world. Included are Steve Reich’s “Different Trains”, George Rochberg’s Third String Quartet (one of my favorites!), Turnage’s operas, the Wandelweiser Collective (new to me but I’m finding it fascinating), Luigi Nono’s “La Lontonana…” (another one of my favorites), Pamela Z’s “Gaijin”, Ali-Zadeh’s “Mugam Sayagi”, Merzbow, crossovers with electronica, ultra-long pieces like “Longplayer”, “classical” deconstructions of other material such as Isabel Mundry’s “Dufay Bearbeitungen” and Michael Finnissy’s “English Country Tunes”, experimental pieces with videos (music/cinema mashups?) and too many more to list here. The playlist at the end is long enough to keep one listening for months, and (since I haven’t heard ¾ of this material) I’m going to be doing just that.

"From a Broken Bottle Traces of Perfume Still Emanate" by Nathaniel Mackey This collection of fictional letters forms not so much a novel as a vast discussion on the subtleties and usage of language. Concepts are bandied about, words (and even characters' names) become puns (i.e. Penguin, a character, becomes Pen, then Penny, then E Po Pen, then King Pen, with lengthy discussions on the ramifications of each). Likewise, the characters themselves morph and mutate into new forms. Penguin and Penny are originally different people; the narrator "N." may also be Jared Bottle (the "broken bottle" of the title), who may also be Djbot Baghostus, who may also be (again) E Po Pen. All of this is tied together by the occasional third-person narration in the "Creaking of the Word" sections. Ostensibly the "story", what there is of it, is about musicians playing in a free-jazz band, the sessions of which cause surrealism (or at least "magic realism") to break into reality; but the more one reads, the more one realizes that this "story" may all be fragments of a dream (and a dream about language as much as about music). The surrealism may be the setting. As if to emphasize this, two characters remain in the dreams of the others -- at the same time. Perhaps the author is saying that reality and dream-states are indistinguishable while someone is experiencing them. At any rate, it's fascinating stuff; and Mr. Mackey's knowledge of jazz (and other music) is encyclopedic. Not an easy read by any means, but fun to explore.

Review of the Album "Air Drop" by Darryl Blood

This dropped into my inbox on day, and I decided to give it a listen. The title “Air Drop” conjures images of supplies descending by parachute, or propaganda leaflets scattered from a helicopter during wartime. This music has slight references to both (some pieces could be the gratefulness for food and equipment dropped into a remote location; others could be the flapping of papers in the wind, against a background of danger). Or it could be that the music has “dropped” through the air onto your computer or device (as it did with mine). The image of birds sitting on a wire suggests another, ickier image — but this is not reflected in the music.

There’s a lot of Pink Floyd, a lot of Brian Eno, and a lot of John Cage in this beautifully-produced suite of ambient keyboard pieces. That is not to say that it’s entirely derivative of other artists and composers (it’s not), but that inspiration comes from many sources which are amalgamated into a new whole. All in all, it’s quite beautiful. The first three tracks lay down the trajectory (or drop?) of the album. “Abernathy” begins with what could be the start of Philip Glass minimalism, but is then overlaid with a melody in what sounds like the Japanese pentatonic scale (in a different key so it’s actually not pentatonic) and the result is somehow reminiscent of the keyboard work in the “Dark Side of the Moon” album. The first “Air Drop” tune (#2; they’re out of order) is a prepared piano interlude that at first sounds microtonal; ambient drones sneak in underneath. The third, “Ardentia”, is straight from Eno’s “Ambient” series, though the melody slowly threads itself through what could be chord changes for a jazz standard. Again, very pretty, if in a slightly bittersweet mood. After these first three, the styles mix and merge. Scattered drumming splatters itself Jackson Pollock style across the prepared piano of the second “Air Drop” (#4), then settles into a steady, slow rock beat underlying the synthesizers in “Novella”. The third “Air Drop” (#5) features a very interesting compositional technique, sometimes heard in the Javanese gamelan: the steady pulse is relegated to the higher notes, while the lower pitches mark off time as deep gong-strokes. The relationship of “beat” to “chords” is inverted. (Miles Davis used the same technique in a slow bebop number, “Nefertiti”, though with a very different end result – it was laid back and infinitely “cool”, whereas Mr. Blood’s piece seems to be a series of nervous glances at a relentlessly ticking clock.) “Voyeur” is another ambient synth piece; then in the last “Air Drop” (#1) the synth and the prepared piano have become one: we’re not sure which we’re listening to at any given moment. Finally, “Stille” (which could mean either “Silent” in German or “Quietly” in Danish) resolves everything with a set of majestic chords that seem to sound from a great distance. The last “Air Drop” piece (#3) is not on the album. I’ll resist the pun about the piece being dropped and assume instead that it did not fit into the overall shape of the album. If the present pieces are any indication of what it’s like, I’d like to hear it by itself sometime. In general what we hear plays on the aspect of “air”: much of the music floats, is blown by wind, or becomes wind itself. In the end, it disappears from the air altogether, slowly departing into infinite space. We listeners are left earthbound, of course, but we are glad to have heard it.

CD Review: Ball of Wax volume 60 (60 x 60 = 60)

I received this CD compilation in the mail after contributing a song (the way music has to be heard now, during the covid pandemic). I popped it in the CD player. More than once. Good stuff! One could describe it as a journey through a wide landscape of music, all in tiny steps (60 one-minute songs; no cut-offs or shortened versions), or perhaps it’s a huge chandelier made of tiny, perfectly-cut gems. Whatever. Just listen to it!


https://ballofwax.org/

There’s too much here to do much more than list a few things that particularly caught my interest, so here goes. It begins with scattered voices over ambient-rock chords (“Ham on Rye by Charles Bukowski” by Hart Slights) and a Beatles-ish song (“Rmembering Six” by the Ex-Optimists). These two form a perfect intro for almost any indie rock album. From there, it proceeds into widely varying territory. My own piece (“Fragments / Figments”) is something of an outlier, a “contemporary classical” piece of musique-concrète (while a lot of the others are various types of homemade indie-rock); but also there is a minimalist ode to Philip Glass (which does not sound like Philip Glass!) (“The Glass Cowell” by Tom Dwyer), a mysterious electronica soundtrack (“Warren Quarentino” by the Great Unwashed Luminaries – great band name!) followed by Biblical law handed down through foggy ambience (“The Lighthouse” by Red Weather Tigers). Doom metal makes an appearance (“Theme to Winterrose” by Hauras), followed immediately by a (Beatle-ish, again) happy pop tune (“Timothy” by Jose Bold) and several other 1960’s sound pallets. Then something that could be either Pink Floyd or Radiohead (!), “Turnstyle” by Greenhorn) and something else that could be Jethro Tull or Simon and Garfunkel (!!), “What we don’t know” by Bluehorn (green, blue, are they the same artist?). Phoebe Tsang uses a violin in a “Cat Remix” that really sounds like a cat. There are some beautiful, quiet ballads (including “No Matter How Long” by Levi Fuller). As hinted by the several pairs of tunes mentioned above, part of the genius of this compilation is the curating. Here’s another example: children singing with an old upright piano (“untitled” by ‘lectrified spit) is immediately followed by a memories of a school bell (“Gengen” by Small Life Form). Slightly later, these kids grow up (a little) and go through their teenage rebellious years with some 80’s punk (by Vic Bondi, Sonic Graffiti, and others). Then there are expletive-laden samples that become beats (‘ohshtmthrfkrwefkdnw” by The Pica Beats) and a horror soundtrack (“hearbleeps” by riceburger). There’s a classic villain song from a twisted musical (“The House is on Fire” by The Axis of Descent et al.) and classic soulful vocals (“The Slide Show” by Sam Russell) and even a subdued free-jazz number (“Too Smart by a Quarter” by The Vardaman Ensemble). All in all it’s a wild collection, a journey through many small towns that somehow are all part of the same vast empire. It’s worth hearing many times, and savoring. I know I’ll be listening several times more, and enjoying the journey.