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Yesterday as I was expounding upon my "Master Core Value" from the curriculum, a specific thought occured to me regarding what goes IN to music. We know a lot about what comes out, of course.
The word isomorphism refers to an "information-preserving transformation." Isomorphisms are everywhere in our world, even if you didn't specifically think of them this way. I'll give a very brief example:
Cat.
You read three letters on the screen (which in themselves are an isomorphism for the finger motions which prompted my computer to create them!), and you got a representation of a full and living being. If I asked you to think about a "cat," you would actually reproduce in your head, and from the letters only, what you know to be a cat. Not the letters "cat," but the actually being itself. Isn't it amazing that a cat can be condensed into one word?
Despite the incredible complexity of a living cat and the relative ease of which we are able to condense it, there are others which are far more veiled, far more ethereal. Such is sound organization, or music.
Let's take a composer at random (impossible) here and say Stravinsky. Now, Stravinsky himself, just as a stand-alone human, is already full of information. Then you add on his entire life-story, his parents, his potential pets, his first girlfriend (or boyfriend), the most embarrassing momemnt he has ever had, his favorite food, the most interesting thing he's ever seen, and everything in between and we realize that when Stravinsky or any person gives an output (whether it is thoughts, art, etc), it comes in the shadow of everything that is the person.
Imagine taking all this information, this entirely uncountable collection of events, and condense it into something like a piece of music. There is a lot of pressure involved in creating a compaction of this magnitude! Yet sadly, more often than not when we go to open the condensed-life, we don't extract everything that went in.
There is a general tendency with composers to view them as "names on the page"; unapproachable genius which simply take instruments and sounds and put them together well. But in truth every musical creation is the collection of events and information that went INTO the music, just in a very very compacted form. We complain about a Mahler Symphony being an hour and a half, but given the sheer emotional volume that Mahler experienced in his life, I'd consider his symphonies as a very dense pack of Mahler (albiet a little less dense than most, but who can blame him!).
Every time that I read music, I make an effort to blow it back up into the sheer information-bearing force that it is meant to be. I ask myself, "was that phrase hollow, or was it packed with life?" Whether we realize it fully or not, when we hear a great performance of any music, we find it great simply because it emulated living in some way. We "connect" to a piece of music when it takes our lives and makes a sound of them.
You WILL engage your audience if you create a sound-product that does justice to all the information compacted inside a sound, or a piece of music. Music that lives and feels is the music worth paying for.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Saturday, May 15, 2010
"Excuse me, but your happiness was entirely inappropriate."
(Please forgive any perceived haughtiness or preachy-ness; this particular thought-can has been sitting in the fridge for quite a while, and when I went to take it out I dropped it and it rolled around everywhere. I tried tapping the top but to no avail).
Here is a sad anecdote:
Your partner is opening presents on Christmas day. They have 4 presents to open (of course all of different expense, shape, and meaning to them). Little does your partner know that these four presents are given to them in a specific order because they are all part of one larger gift, which only the final present will reveal.
They open the first present, and it's awesome! Something they've wanted for a long time. They gasp and leap to you in delight, but you only hold up a hand, saying "open the next present please."
Somewhat embarrassed and put-off, albeit still very excited, your partner nevertheless turns to Present No. 2, which is also a beautiful present and very meaningful to them. They begin to exclaim their happiness, but one stern look from you says "I've already told you not to do that."
Present No. 3 is an excellent present indeed, but your partner shows no enthusiasm toward it, instead swallowing their already-reduced exurberance in favor of simply going on to Present No. 4. Present No. 4, in fact, is the best of all, and fully reveals how the four presents were related. You say, "Okay, go ahead and thank me now."
I don't know about you, but that just doesn't seem like the most appropriate way to give to/share something with someone. Yet this is the lost way of our "Concert Etiquette."
Maybe your presents were meant to be viewed ultimately as a whole, but couldn't your partner relive the experience on their own later and recreate the wholesomeness? Would your presents really be ruined irreparably if you were to be thanked for them individually, as well as on the whole?
I've participated in and seen concerts where the audience (or part of it) applauds "inappropriately", and the conductor will actually use his hand to silence them, never acknowledging or accepting the support. I feel like I can't begin to expound on the social ramifications of that action.
Suffice it to say, however, that by forcefully transcending an art that offers so much promise for emotional impact above the heads of the audience which the art proposes to impact in the first place, we succeed only in alienating our own supporters. Prescribing applause to occur when you want it to is a distortion of enthusiasm, and, however subconsciously, IS felt by your audience. You just can't expect to bundle up emotions however you want and expect them to be released perfectly intact at a time that you deem prudent. In addition and needless to say, it also devalues any and all applause you receive, simply because you know it is coming.
People literally scream through entire pop concerts, is that wrong? Maybe it feels good to scream, cheer, and show unbridled enthusiasm. I've never seen Britney Spears or John Mayer or whomever stop everyone and say, "excuse me, but could you wait, I'm trying to do something awesome here."
When a tenor sax player absolutely annihilates some chord changes with improvisational creativity, does it ruin the music that follows to recognize something that you found to be amazing? What if that same sax player were to yell at everyone who is actively supporting his latest piece of impromptu art?
"Classical" music, "Art" music, "Concert" music, any of the various pigeon-holing names we come up with are an endangered species because it is losing relevance, but not to the mind. Our brains have not literally grown new sections in the last 200 years; evolution is much too slow to use that as a justification. Rather, only the social conditions have changed. Just like in evolution however, the ability to adapt is paramount to survival. Everyone can and will enjoy anything that excites them, inspires them, or moves them. Classical music in every way should fulfill those standards, but we refuse to let it change with the times.
If I had a way and a sufficiently powerful platform, I would choose to abolish completely the aspects of Concert Etiquette. I'd choose instead to let the receivers of information be free to express, mirror, and reflect all the surprises, disappointments, thrills, and emotional moments that are contained in the information. It is, after all, the essence of sharing experiences, and I sincerely don't believe that there is much more than that to the Art of Living.
Here is a sad anecdote:
Your partner is opening presents on Christmas day. They have 4 presents to open (of course all of different expense, shape, and meaning to them). Little does your partner know that these four presents are given to them in a specific order because they are all part of one larger gift, which only the final present will reveal.
They open the first present, and it's awesome! Something they've wanted for a long time. They gasp and leap to you in delight, but you only hold up a hand, saying "open the next present please."
Somewhat embarrassed and put-off, albeit still very excited, your partner nevertheless turns to Present No. 2, which is also a beautiful present and very meaningful to them. They begin to exclaim their happiness, but one stern look from you says "I've already told you not to do that."
Present No. 3 is an excellent present indeed, but your partner shows no enthusiasm toward it, instead swallowing their already-reduced exurberance in favor of simply going on to Present No. 4. Present No. 4, in fact, is the best of all, and fully reveals how the four presents were related. You say, "Okay, go ahead and thank me now."
I don't know about you, but that just doesn't seem like the most appropriate way to give to/share something with someone. Yet this is the lost way of our "Concert Etiquette."
Maybe your presents were meant to be viewed ultimately as a whole, but couldn't your partner relive the experience on their own later and recreate the wholesomeness? Would your presents really be ruined irreparably if you were to be thanked for them individually, as well as on the whole?
I've participated in and seen concerts where the audience (or part of it) applauds "inappropriately", and the conductor will actually use his hand to silence them, never acknowledging or accepting the support. I feel like I can't begin to expound on the social ramifications of that action.
Suffice it to say, however, that by forcefully transcending an art that offers so much promise for emotional impact above the heads of the audience which the art proposes to impact in the first place, we succeed only in alienating our own supporters. Prescribing applause to occur when you want it to is a distortion of enthusiasm, and, however subconsciously, IS felt by your audience. You just can't expect to bundle up emotions however you want and expect them to be released perfectly intact at a time that you deem prudent. In addition and needless to say, it also devalues any and all applause you receive, simply because you know it is coming.
People literally scream through entire pop concerts, is that wrong? Maybe it feels good to scream, cheer, and show unbridled enthusiasm. I've never seen Britney Spears or John Mayer or whomever stop everyone and say, "excuse me, but could you wait, I'm trying to do something awesome here."
When a tenor sax player absolutely annihilates some chord changes with improvisational creativity, does it ruin the music that follows to recognize something that you found to be amazing? What if that same sax player were to yell at everyone who is actively supporting his latest piece of impromptu art?
"Classical" music, "Art" music, "Concert" music, any of the various pigeon-holing names we come up with are an endangered species because it is losing relevance, but not to the mind. Our brains have not literally grown new sections in the last 200 years; evolution is much too slow to use that as a justification. Rather, only the social conditions have changed. Just like in evolution however, the ability to adapt is paramount to survival. Everyone can and will enjoy anything that excites them, inspires them, or moves them. Classical music in every way should fulfill those standards, but we refuse to let it change with the times.
If I had a way and a sufficiently powerful platform, I would choose to abolish completely the aspects of Concert Etiquette. I'd choose instead to let the receivers of information be free to express, mirror, and reflect all the surprises, disappointments, thrills, and emotional moments that are contained in the information. It is, after all, the essence of sharing experiences, and I sincerely don't believe that there is much more than that to the Art of Living.
Friday, May 14, 2010
But that's not what it says on the page!
The "ink" on the page should always be taken with a grain of salt.
(Some of you who know me from high school or early undergraduate years might be rolling their eyes right now, but I assure you, it has calmed down a lot)
Never let anybody tell you that what you played is wrong because it "isn't on the page". What is on the page is the composer's symbolic interpretation of the emotional affects that they were trying to portray. This is why dynamics, articulations, and expression markings are so subjective: the marking "forte" for example, may be meant to complement terror, hysteria, exuberance, glory, anxiety, or many other descriptors.
The key then is to understand what the emotions were, and then portray them in whatever manner actually executes the desired effect. If the composer meant "terror" at the time and had written "forte" with accents on every note, but for YOU the most terrifying way of playing the passage is "marcato" at "mezzo-forte," then go ahead! You are serving the composer more by altering the ink to fit the affect then you would be by just blindly following instructions.
P.S. Always be reasonable, and you don't get to decide this in larger ensembles!
(Some of you who know me from high school or early undergraduate years might be rolling their eyes right now, but I assure you, it has calmed down a lot)
Never let anybody tell you that what you played is wrong because it "isn't on the page". What is on the page is the composer's symbolic interpretation of the emotional affects that they were trying to portray. This is why dynamics, articulations, and expression markings are so subjective: the marking "forte" for example, may be meant to complement terror, hysteria, exuberance, glory, anxiety, or many other descriptors.
The key then is to understand what the emotions were, and then portray them in whatever manner actually executes the desired effect. If the composer meant "terror" at the time and had written "forte" with accents on every note, but for YOU the most terrifying way of playing the passage is "marcato" at "mezzo-forte," then go ahead! You are serving the composer more by altering the ink to fit the affect then you would be by just blindly following instructions.
P.S. Always be reasonable, and you don't get to decide this in larger ensembles!
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Trombone-Grammar and the Musical-Sentence
It seems a bit too often that you hear someone try to qualify the emotional aspects of a musical line by pointing to the "grammatical" characteristics of the sound rather than to the "effective" characteristics.
The characteristics of tonal music can be likened to syntax in language in numerable ways. A linguistic sentence is composed (and it is of no coincidence that the word "composition" is used for both music and language) with a variety of "pieces", like nouns, adjectives, prepositions, etc. Our Trombone-Grammar similarly consists of special little qualifiers like louder, softer, harder, faster, slower, more rubato, etc.
Imagine though that you are reading a sentence from your favorite book: How do you "feel" the sentence? As a collection of syntax, or as an presentation of an idea?
Let's say that a motivational speaker is writing a speech. This speech trying to convince his/her audience to be swayed, persuaded, moved, and altogether enthused by the words which are contained in the speech. At points through the course of proof-reading (read: practicing) our motivational speaker reads over a particular sentence and decides that this sentence isn't quite producing the effect that he wants. The speaker then can approach correcting the sentence in a couple ways; Which approach would he likely use?
A) "Ah, this sentence isn't quite right, it doesn't have exactly the effect that I am imagining...perhaps I should add a noun."
or.....
B) "Ah, this sentence isn't quite right, it needs to appeal more to the particular sensitivities of the age-group of my audience."
If our speaker is worth his weight in words, he would hopefully be thinking more along the lines of option B.
Options A and B for a practicing musician would go similarly:
A) "This isn't quite right, it needs to be louder"
B) "This isn't quite right, it needs to be more tense and tragic."
The term "louder" is simply a characteristic of a given moment relative to a preceding moment, and out of context doesn't "mean" anything to the listener. Instead of thinking in Trombone-Grammar, think in musical effect, something like "This isn't quite right, how can I impress upon my audience more excitement, or anxiety, or enthusiasm, or inspiriation, or joy here?" This takes into account the entire context, and approaches the "change" from the standpoint of the desired end-product.
The grammar and syntax of the language are what we might call meta-language, or language for talking about language. The Trombone-Grammar is the meta-sound, the sound language for talking about sound. Trombone-Grammar is compressed in the package of Musical-Effects.zip: you can extract the pieces out if you desire, but it doesn't work the other way around. Just as a sentence in English (or otherwise) is meant to be understood as one singular and self-contained idea, so are most musical phrases (serialism, aleatory, etc. notwithstanding).
Simplify and consolidate your processes and your practice will be much more efficient. The more you can think of the end-product, the less consumed your mind will be with the little pieces of brass playing.
That's a really good thing.
The characteristics of tonal music can be likened to syntax in language in numerable ways. A linguistic sentence is composed (and it is of no coincidence that the word "composition" is used for both music and language) with a variety of "pieces", like nouns, adjectives, prepositions, etc. Our Trombone-Grammar similarly consists of special little qualifiers like louder, softer, harder, faster, slower, more rubato, etc.
Imagine though that you are reading a sentence from your favorite book: How do you "feel" the sentence? As a collection of syntax, or as an presentation of an idea?
Let's say that a motivational speaker is writing a speech. This speech trying to convince his/her audience to be swayed, persuaded, moved, and altogether enthused by the words which are contained in the speech. At points through the course of proof-reading (read: practicing) our motivational speaker reads over a particular sentence and decides that this sentence isn't quite producing the effect that he wants. The speaker then can approach correcting the sentence in a couple ways; Which approach would he likely use?
A) "Ah, this sentence isn't quite right, it doesn't have exactly the effect that I am imagining...perhaps I should add a noun."
or.....
B) "Ah, this sentence isn't quite right, it needs to appeal more to the particular sensitivities of the age-group of my audience."
If our speaker is worth his weight in words, he would hopefully be thinking more along the lines of option B.
Options A and B for a practicing musician would go similarly:
A) "This isn't quite right, it needs to be louder"
B) "This isn't quite right, it needs to be more tense and tragic."
The term "louder" is simply a characteristic of a given moment relative to a preceding moment, and out of context doesn't "mean" anything to the listener. Instead of thinking in Trombone-Grammar, think in musical effect, something like "This isn't quite right, how can I impress upon my audience more excitement, or anxiety, or enthusiasm, or inspiriation, or joy here?" This takes into account the entire context, and approaches the "change" from the standpoint of the desired end-product.
The grammar and syntax of the language are what we might call meta-language, or language for talking about language. The Trombone-Grammar is the meta-sound, the sound language for talking about sound. Trombone-Grammar is compressed in the package of Musical-Effects.zip: you can extract the pieces out if you desire, but it doesn't work the other way around. Just as a sentence in English (or otherwise) is meant to be understood as one singular and self-contained idea, so are most musical phrases (serialism, aleatory, etc. notwithstanding).
Simplify and consolidate your processes and your practice will be much more efficient. The more you can think of the end-product, the less consumed your mind will be with the little pieces of brass playing.
That's a really good thing.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Analogies are Analogous to Analogies.
I find it appropriate to make my first blog entry about the operating mechanism of the verbiage promised:
Analogies.
Have you noticed that the more you learn about something, the more you are able to relate that something to something else?
There exists a sort of hierarchy of all "things," or to use the most simple (read: accessible) comparison, a very massive tree. It just so happens that we tend to live our lives in the canopy of the hierarchy, where the tree has branched outward the most. You know, to be fair, a tree isn't an entirely accurate description; we might think of a skyscraper (....and it begins!).
So the LifeScraper has uncountable floors and a very peculiar construction: there are no elevators, you can only exist on the roof, and it is cone-shaped, standing with amazingly stability on its infinitesimal point.
The LifeScraper is built of all things which are, and every floor is a progression of the floor directly below it. With more and more education and life-experience, we acquire pictures of the lower floors, and we say, "That's funny....there is something on that floor below which is shaped just like this thing here, on the roof." The more pictures we find, the more similarly-shaped things we see. In fact, we start to see things that are similarly-shaped existing on multiple floors as well as the roof.
It seems that people tend to view analogies (such as "pretend like you have a balloon inflating in your stomach" or "imagine that you are a thoughtless machine when you exercise") as convenient ways of tricking our brains. The trick is really on us, because our brains actually recognize the inherent similarity, if applicable (and there are some bad analogies!), and act accordingly.
In reality, the ground-floor of the LifeScraper contains only the most simple and basic components of everything that will follow above it. The entire universe and every single thing that exists in it is a product of the smallest components possible. In fact, examples like the LifeScraper, or the balloon referenced above, are the really only drawn from the very top of the LifeScraper.
In this blog, if you find that I tend to constantly draw comparisons, it is because there are infinitely many from which to draw. Keep searching for the pictures of floors below the roof, because they help to simplify and consolidate ideas and actions.
If life is the set of all things, then analogies, included within the set, are analogous to themselves.
Analogies.
Have you noticed that the more you learn about something, the more you are able to relate that something to something else?
There exists a sort of hierarchy of all "things," or to use the most simple (read: accessible) comparison, a very massive tree. It just so happens that we tend to live our lives in the canopy of the hierarchy, where the tree has branched outward the most. You know, to be fair, a tree isn't an entirely accurate description; we might think of a skyscraper (....and it begins!).
So the LifeScraper has uncountable floors and a very peculiar construction: there are no elevators, you can only exist on the roof, and it is cone-shaped, standing with amazingly stability on its infinitesimal point.
The LifeScraper is built of all things which are, and every floor is a progression of the floor directly below it. With more and more education and life-experience, we acquire pictures of the lower floors, and we say, "That's funny....there is something on that floor below which is shaped just like this thing here, on the roof." The more pictures we find, the more similarly-shaped things we see. In fact, we start to see things that are similarly-shaped existing on multiple floors as well as the roof.
It seems that people tend to view analogies (such as "pretend like you have a balloon inflating in your stomach" or "imagine that you are a thoughtless machine when you exercise") as convenient ways of tricking our brains. The trick is really on us, because our brains actually recognize the inherent similarity, if applicable (and there are some bad analogies!), and act accordingly.
In reality, the ground-floor of the LifeScraper contains only the most simple and basic components of everything that will follow above it. The entire universe and every single thing that exists in it is a product of the smallest components possible. In fact, examples like the LifeScraper, or the balloon referenced above, are the really only drawn from the very top of the LifeScraper.
In this blog, if you find that I tend to constantly draw comparisons, it is because there are infinitely many from which to draw. Keep searching for the pictures of floors below the roof, because they help to simplify and consolidate ideas and actions.
If life is the set of all things, then analogies, included within the set, are analogous to themselves.
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