First, I'd like to issue a public apology to Ryan and Drew for missing amusicology's gathering on Thursday night. That tops the list of regrets I always seem to accumulate at every AMS conference, due to too many plans and not enough time.
Secondly, I apologize AGAIN to Ryan for missing what I'm sure was an absolutely spectacular paper: "Rewriting the History of (Symphonic) Jazz: Duke Ellington's arrangements of Rhapsody in Blue."
My list of regrets is rather long this year due to several cross-schedulings that I wish had not been (Elizabeth Morgan's paper on Haydn's C Major Fantasia (Pianism session) against the Haydn and Mozart session?? It would have been nice if she had been on the second half of the Pianism session and therefore at least up against Mozart, instead of Haydn). Apologies to Elizabeth.
And Phil's very thoughtful post on Michael Broyles paper, "Beethoven Was Black. Why Does It Matter" was MUCH appreciated since I couldn't make it to that session.
On the flipside, I did get to hear Dean Sutcliffe talk about the "shapes of sociability" and the 'gracious riposte' in Haydn's music. This was followed by a presentation on Haydn's lesser known second opera house at Esterháza, bringing together the work of a musicologist, theater historian, and an acoustician.
Tim Carter's paper on Kurt Weill and the Federal Theater Project was illuminating and certainly the most engaging paper in terms of delivery that I've yet to see this year. I also enjoyed YouYoung Kang's offerings on the WPA and the sort of political overtones/current state-of-affairs ushered in by the audience comments.
Danielle Fossler-Lussier's paper, "'The right and best ambassador': Marian Anderson, Louis Armstrong, and the U.S. Reception of Cultural Diplomacy" was eye-opening in the way it demonstrated how being a cultural ambassador abroad can often be a "no-win" situation here at home, where "representation" is such a muddled mess of a concept.
Now, I'm gearing up for the Haydn Society of North America meeting--looking forward to fruitful discussion!
Showing posts with label musicology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label musicology. Show all posts
Saturday, November 06, 2010
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Accountability as summer ends
Summer is effectively over. The meetings have begun. I'm constructing syllabi. I capped off my summer with a week-long research trip to Pittsburgh (or did I begin my fall?---not sure). At any rate, based on yet another good idea from Phil, I figured blogging my musicological to-do-list might be a good idea for accountability. I don't intend on making updates a regular feature, but this will help me focus on what I need to achieve this year. It is going to be a roller-coaster of a ride this fall term (five classes spread over three institutions), so anything that helps keep me on track is a boon.
Lets Get Started!
Syllabi (Fall '09 only)DONE!
Textbook orders placedDONE!
Book Reviews
Conference Papers
Program Notes
Pre-concert LecturesDONE!
Elections to coordinate/tabulate
The list above represents the items to which I have commitments/have been accepted. Below I've included some goals for this year.
Conference abstracts to submit
Articles to submit
Book Proposal to outline
So, there's nothing left to do except get to it! I'll take this opportunity to wish everyone else happy term-preparation!
NEXT POST: Jenny Lind sighting (in PA!) Rebecca's Jenny Lind Tour Development Post
Lets Get Started!
Syllabi (Fall '09 only)DONE!
5 / 5
Textbook orders placedDONE!
3 / 3
Book Reviews
0 / 2
Conference Papers
0 / 1
Program Notes
0 / 5
Pre-concert LecturesDONE!
1 / 1
Elections to coordinate/tabulate
0 / 1
The list above represents the items to which I have commitments/have been accepted. Below I've included some goals for this year.
Conference abstracts to submit
0 / 3
Articles to submit
0 / 2
Book Proposal to outline
0 / 1
So, there's nothing left to do except get to it! I'll take this opportunity to wish everyone else happy term-preparation!
NEXT POST: Jenny Lind sighting (in PA!) Rebecca's Jenny Lind Tour Development Post
Monday, July 06, 2009
Musical Icons
Yes, I'm going to do it, so let's just get it out of the way, shall we?
I apologize for silence on this blog.
Ok, there. Not so bad. (This is all in reference to the rule that you aren't supposed to apologize for lack of blogging). I'd like to tell you all that it was a Cagean experiment in blogging, but that would be untrue. What is a more likely culprit is much needed downtime from academia. And yes, I include my blogging (and reading of other blogs) in that.
I've been busy reading the messages and posts re: MJ's death, career, wackiness, rage, etc. and I've felt particularly grateful NOT to be famous. I find it sad that death should be the catalyst for a discussion of MJ's music on the blogosphere, Twitter, and the AMS-L. I do think, however, that death seems to give music new life. We listen to it with new ears (to borrow from Proust)...ears that resonate with nostalgia, yet filter out the noise of a very public life. I can't say a whole lot about MJ's music, except that I'm conscious now of how big a part it played in the scenery of my life. There have been several times in the last week or so when I've said, "THAT's Michael Jackson??" in response to hearing a song. I like this sense of uncovering a secret. I'm sorry that I paid his music little mind when he was alive, but perhaps that is a symptom of being trained in listening to the music of DWG (that's "Dead White Guys" for those of you following along at home). Of course, being that I specialize in 20th-21st century music, that claim doesn't really work.
I want to write about icons, actually. It is a word that is tossed around, particularly in regard to Michael Jackson, and I feel it is appropriate. If I was not struck by his music, I was very much taken by his iconic presence. On Friday morning, the day after Michael Jackson passed, I had a rather surreal experience while walking through Boston's South Station. In an almost uniform manner, almost every single person in the station was reading the Metro, which featured a large headline that said something like, "The King of Pop is Dead." I don't recall the actual headline, but I was struck by how this seemed to be a fiction, even though I knew it to be true. It was like walking through an episode of the Twilight Zone, where in a parallel world, Michael Jackson had died, and all the bizarre inhabitants of the world moved their unblinking eyes in tandem across the pages of the Boston Metro, and coordinated the turning of those pages.
Madeleine L'Engle, in a wonderful (though quirky) book entitled Penguins and Golden Calves: Icons and Idols, writes this about icons:
Perhaps L'Engle's description does not exactly jive with our images of "Wacko Jacko," but like the blanket or the stuffed animal, MJ the icon was the "all-rightness", whereas MJ the person was definitely "not all right." Here was an icon who asked us to start with the man in the mirror...the icon could ask, the man could not.
To continue with L'Engle: "An icon is something I can look through and get a wider glimpse of God and God's demands on us..."
In watching the grief of thousands over MJ's death, I believe that this was probably very true for some of his most devoted fans. But the real tragedy of the human icon is that they are indeed looked through--basically a means to an end. For the blanket, it doesn't mean too much, but we might take a moment to examine the cost of using musicians in this way.
I apologize for silence on this blog.
Ok, there. Not so bad. (This is all in reference to the rule that you aren't supposed to apologize for lack of blogging). I'd like to tell you all that it was a Cagean experiment in blogging, but that would be untrue. What is a more likely culprit is much needed downtime from academia. And yes, I include my blogging (and reading of other blogs) in that.
I've been busy reading the messages and posts re: MJ's death, career, wackiness, rage, etc. and I've felt particularly grateful NOT to be famous. I find it sad that death should be the catalyst for a discussion of MJ's music on the blogosphere, Twitter, and the AMS-L. I do think, however, that death seems to give music new life. We listen to it with new ears (to borrow from Proust)...ears that resonate with nostalgia, yet filter out the noise of a very public life. I can't say a whole lot about MJ's music, except that I'm conscious now of how big a part it played in the scenery of my life. There have been several times in the last week or so when I've said, "THAT's Michael Jackson??" in response to hearing a song. I like this sense of uncovering a secret. I'm sorry that I paid his music little mind when he was alive, but perhaps that is a symptom of being trained in listening to the music of DWG (that's "Dead White Guys" for those of you following along at home). Of course, being that I specialize in 20th-21st century music, that claim doesn't really work.
I want to write about icons, actually. It is a word that is tossed around, particularly in regard to Michael Jackson, and I feel it is appropriate. If I was not struck by his music, I was very much taken by his iconic presence. On Friday morning, the day after Michael Jackson passed, I had a rather surreal experience while walking through Boston's South Station. In an almost uniform manner, almost every single person in the station was reading the Metro, which featured a large headline that said something like, "The King of Pop is Dead." I don't recall the actual headline, but I was struck by how this seemed to be a fiction, even though I knew it to be true. It was like walking through an episode of the Twilight Zone, where in a parallel world, Michael Jackson had died, and all the bizarre inhabitants of the world moved their unblinking eyes in tandem across the pages of the Boston Metro, and coordinated the turning of those pages.
Madeleine L'Engle, in a wonderful (though quirky) book entitled Penguins and Golden Calves: Icons and Idols, writes this about icons:
Our need for icons begins in early childhood when we hold on to the favourite little piece of blanket, or the beloved stuffed animal. The blanket is not a blanket, nor is the animal a mere animal; they are icons of all-rightness in a world that early shows itself to be not all right. They are icons of tender love in a society that daily becomes more brutal and violent.
Perhaps L'Engle's description does not exactly jive with our images of "Wacko Jacko," but like the blanket or the stuffed animal, MJ the icon was the "all-rightness", whereas MJ the person was definitely "not all right." Here was an icon who asked us to start with the man in the mirror...the icon could ask, the man could not.
To continue with L'Engle: "An icon is something I can look through and get a wider glimpse of God and God's demands on us..."
In watching the grief of thousands over MJ's death, I believe that this was probably very true for some of his most devoted fans. But the real tragedy of the human icon is that they are indeed looked through--basically a means to an end. For the blanket, it doesn't mean too much, but we might take a moment to examine the cost of using musicians in this way.
---
If you haven't already, I encourage you to take a look at the following posts regarding Michael Jackson:
The Musicological Michael Jackson (Musicology/Matters)
Rage in his Feet (2'23 and cross-posted at Musicology/Matters)
I Want You Back: A Musiceulogical Inquiry (Musicology/Matters)
Michael Jackson (Ryan at amusicology)
and an ongoing compendium here (once again, brought to you by the great bloggers at M/M).
The Musicological Michael Jackson (Musicology/Matters)
Rage in his Feet (2'23 and cross-posted at Musicology/Matters)
I Want You Back: A Musiceulogical Inquiry (Musicology/Matters)
Michael Jackson (Ryan at amusicology)
and an ongoing compendium here (once again, brought to you by the great bloggers at M/M).
Friday, November 14, 2008
AMS/SMT 2008: Nashville, TN
Alright, I guess it is my turn for not-so-much-live blogging from AMS. Now that I've made my public service announcement, recovered from two hours on the tarmac at Washington-Dulles, and have caught up on some sleep, I can offer a few thoughts and highlights.
Like Drew, I got there early (Wednesday), but alas, unlike Drew, did not meet with Rich Crawford. I ventured out to the streets of Nashville for dinner, alone and in conference attire, then turned right back around and ate at the hotel. Having been raised in Los Angeles, I've learned to trust my instincts. Something about being alone, sans cowboy boots and jeans, made me feel rather conspicuous. I will give the hotel restaurant props for their excellent hospitality.
Thursday morning I waited not-so-patiently for the registration desk to open so that I could obtain my name tag and bag, absolute necessities to complete my conference ensemble. I spoke with Al Hipkins who was really on top of things (enough so to suggest that we probably didn't need room for 100 people for the Haydn Society Meeting and I should let him know...). Then after text messaging my roommate (who was in Memphis enjoying the Civil Rights Museum), I plopped myself down in a chair at Starbucks and tried to look busy. I read through my program and programmed all the sessions I wanted to/had-the-best-of-intentions to attend into my PDA/superphone, and ordered another latte.
Thursday Afternoon
I ran into W. Dean Sutcfliffe and asked if he would announce (at the Haydn Session) that the time and place for the Haydn Society meeting were incorrect in the program. I went to the Haydn session at 2, made myself useful by helping pass out handouts (I had to do something secretarial), and settled in. I enjoyed all the papers, especially Elaine Sisman's. I mused upon how many opportunities one has to look at anatomical drawings in a musicology session (Sarah Day O'Connell's paper) and thoroughly enjoyed Peter Hoyt's offerings of English prints of clerics with windmills on their heads (yes, still in the Haydn session). I did wish to clone myself so that I could have been in the Messiaen session at the same time.
I joyfully greeted my roommate (safely arrived from Memphis) and we headed to the opening reception which resembled a swap meet with drinks. I scored a drink ticket from my wonderful chair, and proceeded to chat with my grad school cohorts. It was a strange feeling as four of us are now "Drs." and we all have some sort of employment.
Friday morning I missed the Convent Music session (sorry!) to go hear Michael Cuthbert and Giovanni Zanovello both give extraordinary papers at the "Discovering Repertories of Italian Sacred Music." My presence at a Med/Ren session did earn me the anticipated remark about my presence at a Med/Ren session, but I didn't mind this time. I did feel it was unfair to have Giovanni's paper on musical repertories of the Santissima Annunziata convent at the same time as the other "convent" session, but decided that unlike me, most people probably do not attend those sessions because of a strange fascination with nuns.
I hopped over to the Instrumental Eccentricities session to see my former grad school colleague Ed Johnson give a very fine paper on "The Death and Second Life of the Harpsichord." In addition, Ed also gets the award for best conference handout (this needs to be added to the awards handed out at the business meeting).
Things I missed with a high degree of guilt and/or dismay:
Other Highlights:
I will save my letter to United Airlines regarding my Washington-Dulles experience for another post.
Like Drew, I got there early (Wednesday), but alas, unlike Drew, did not meet with Rich Crawford. I ventured out to the streets of Nashville for dinner, alone and in conference attire, then turned right back around and ate at the hotel. Having been raised in Los Angeles, I've learned to trust my instincts. Something about being alone, sans cowboy boots and jeans, made me feel rather conspicuous. I will give the hotel restaurant props for their excellent hospitality.
Thursday morning I waited not-so-patiently for the registration desk to open so that I could obtain my name tag and bag, absolute necessities to complete my conference ensemble. I spoke with Al Hipkins who was really on top of things (enough so to suggest that we probably didn't need room for 100 people for the Haydn Society Meeting and I should let him know...). Then after text messaging my roommate (who was in Memphis enjoying the Civil Rights Museum), I plopped myself down in a chair at Starbucks and tried to look busy. I read through my program and programmed all the sessions I wanted to/had-the-best-of-intentions to attend into my PDA/superphone, and ordered another latte.
Thursday Afternoon
I ran into W. Dean Sutcfliffe and asked if he would announce (at the Haydn Session) that the time and place for the Haydn Society meeting were incorrect in the program. I went to the Haydn session at 2, made myself useful by helping pass out handouts (I had to do something secretarial), and settled in. I enjoyed all the papers, especially Elaine Sisman's. I mused upon how many opportunities one has to look at anatomical drawings in a musicology session (Sarah Day O'Connell's paper) and thoroughly enjoyed Peter Hoyt's offerings of English prints of clerics with windmills on their heads (yes, still in the Haydn session). I did wish to clone myself so that I could have been in the Messiaen session at the same time.
I joyfully greeted my roommate (safely arrived from Memphis) and we headed to the opening reception which resembled a swap meet with drinks. I scored a drink ticket from my wonderful chair, and proceeded to chat with my grad school cohorts. It was a strange feeling as four of us are now "Drs." and we all have some sort of employment.
Friday morning I missed the Convent Music session (sorry!) to go hear Michael Cuthbert and Giovanni Zanovello both give extraordinary papers at the "Discovering Repertories of Italian Sacred Music." My presence at a Med/Ren session did earn me the anticipated remark about my presence at a Med/Ren session, but I didn't mind this time. I did feel it was unfair to have Giovanni's paper on musical repertories of the Santissima Annunziata convent at the same time as the other "convent" session, but decided that unlike me, most people probably do not attend those sessions because of a strange fascination with nuns.
I hopped over to the Instrumental Eccentricities session to see my former grad school colleague Ed Johnson give a very fine paper on "The Death and Second Life of the Harpsichord." In addition, Ed also gets the award for best conference handout (this needs to be added to the awards handed out at the business meeting).
Things I missed with a high degree of guilt and/or dismay:
- Drew's paper (at least I missed it for another American music topic, but still...)
- Samantha Bassler's presentation (Scholars with Disabilities)
- More of a chance to chat with Elissa
- "From Broadway to the Concert Stage" session
- "Sacred or Profane? Popular Music and Religion in the United States" session
- The recognition of Ryan's Howard Mayer Brown Fellowship (GO RYAN!)---I did go to the business meeting but left right after all the AMS-50 presentations. I'm still digesting the triumphal fanfare that opened the meeting.
- "Political Polarities in the '30s" session (met the fate of many a Sunday session for me)
- Not seeing the 10-15 people to whom I said, "Let's catch up in Nashville!" HAH! Right.
Other Highlights:
- Coffee with Steve Fisher
- A successful Haydn Society of North America business meeting
- Late evenings at the bar with friends and colleagues
- People-watching in the lobby/bar
- A chance to celebrate Bill Prizer's birthday and Festschrift!!
- An extravagant and glorious birthday dinner with my undergrad mentor and his wife, and my dear friend/roomie
- A self-guided tour of Ryman Auditorium (the REAL Grand Ol' Opry)
- Fisk Jubilee Singers concert (fantastic!)
- The Norton reception and chatting with Steve Hoge
I will save my letter to United Airlines regarding my Washington-Dulles experience for another post.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
My two cents...eh, in this market, maybe only one.
I will be the first to admit that there are topics discussed on the AMS-List that interest me less than they probably should. Some topics stimulate such voluminous discussion that I feel more overwhelmed than inspired. But the joy of email is that it can be deleted with one click of a mouse. Gone. Forever.
Occasionally, however, when I can invest the time, I do like the check in with the list, which is why it is so disappointing when I see the list used as a forum for self-promotion and ad hominem attacks. And by self-promotion, I do NOT mean calling our attention to your new book on a musicological subject.
I rarely participate in the discussions because I don't care to get into debates that amount to "my Ph.D. is bigger than your Ph.D." (not a direct quote, thank goodness). Yes, yes...I know...part of it is just academia. But I don't have to like it. If, at the end of the day I don't gain notoriety and acceptance from the entire musicological community, but I still have a little bit of healthy idealism intact, I'd say I've stayed true to myself, my students, and my profession.
Occasionally, however, when I can invest the time, I do like the check in with the list, which is why it is so disappointing when I see the list used as a forum for self-promotion and ad hominem attacks. And by self-promotion, I do NOT mean calling our attention to your new book on a musicological subject.
I rarely participate in the discussions because I don't care to get into debates that amount to "my Ph.D. is bigger than your Ph.D." (not a direct quote, thank goodness). Yes, yes...I know...part of it is just academia. But I don't have to like it. If, at the end of the day I don't gain notoriety and acceptance from the entire musicological community, but I still have a little bit of healthy idealism intact, I'd say I've stayed true to myself, my students, and my profession.
Wednesday, August 06, 2008
Hello, again...Hello.
Well, I've been on quite a vacation, but believe me, the only vacation I have had has been in the virtual realm. My friends with whom I communicate via e-mail must think I've gone AWOL. I won't make any promises about the frequency of my posting, but let's just say I'm hoping to be more present, at least in my reading of wonderful musicological blogs. I devoted some time today to "catching up" with the blogging community, and discovered I missed this wonderful post by Phil Ford over at Dial M. I have watched my own writing develop, and can gladly say that I no longer feel it necessary to include the word "polemic" in every single piece of academic writing I produce. I'd like to think I use it with more discretion now. Writing, much like teaching, can always be better. Part of the "fun" is the revision process (although it is rarely fun in the moment) because you catch those entire paragraphs that probably made sense to your sleep-deprived brain at the time, but now read like a sermon in Swahili. Thank goodness for peer-reviewers and editors.
Before I tell you what has kept me from engaging with the blogosphere this summer, I have two bits of inconsequential but fun news to share.
First, I received my wonderful t-shirt from Soho The Dog. I'm wearing it proudly today as I'll be meeting with a musicologist colleague later. I prefer to think of it as "edgy coolness" rather than nerdiness.
And, this came in yesterday's mail. One down, one to go!
So what has Rebecca been up to? For the first summer in a long time, I have not left the state of my residence (and now that I live in Massachusetts, we will not be counting day trips to New Hampshire or Rhode Island). I did, however, receive a flurry of house guests all in the span of three weeks: friends, parents, and in-laws. I took a course in Marketing for Performing Arts Organizations. I've been organizing conferences, sitting on boards, doing some preliminary house-hunting, and trying to enjoy the summer offerings of Massachusetts.
Musicologically speaking, I'm working on several projects. One involves the Pittsburgh Symphony, but that is on hold until my dear friends move to Pittsburgh in a few weeks. M has just accepted a professorship at U Pitt (in physics), and he and his wife have bought a house...with plenty of room for guests. So, you see my strategy---free accommodations should never be rejected.
Secondly, it appears I'll be teaching a class entitled "Music in the United States" this fall. So, I'm going through the gratifying/frustrating process of constructing a syllabus. It is a general course for non-majors, and cross-registered with American Studies. I'll be using Richard Crawford's America's Musical Life, which I think will suit my class quite well. Of course I'm struggling with distribution and how much time to spend on the potpourri of musical styles I'll need to cover. I'm considering some overarching themes ( "Music and Religion," "Music and War," for example) to guide the course structure, rather than a strict chronological approach. I'd love to be able to talk about William Billings and William Schuman (New England Triptych) in the same class. Why does this feel so risky to me? (Not a rhetorical question---I'd like to hear your thoughts!)
It is my hope that my connections between ye olde American musicke and modernity will lend some kind of resonance to the subject matter. I don't think these students are taking this particular course so that they can recite some sort of canonized development of music in the United States. The timeline aspect is important, yes, but I think it is secondary to understanding the major interactions between society, culture, politics and music. Isn't that why I'm a musicologist in the first place? So, I'm going to continue to pull from the past and pull from the present, and hopefully the class will come to appreciate music history as part of a greater work in progress.
Before I tell you what has kept me from engaging with the blogosphere this summer, I have two bits of inconsequential but fun news to share.
First, I received my wonderful t-shirt from Soho The Dog. I'm wearing it proudly today as I'll be meeting with a musicologist colleague later. I prefer to think of it as "edgy coolness" rather than nerdiness.
And, this came in yesterday's mail. One down, one to go!
So what has Rebecca been up to? For the first summer in a long time, I have not left the state of my residence (and now that I live in Massachusetts, we will not be counting day trips to New Hampshire or Rhode Island). I did, however, receive a flurry of house guests all in the span of three weeks: friends, parents, and in-laws. I took a course in Marketing for Performing Arts Organizations. I've been organizing conferences, sitting on boards, doing some preliminary house-hunting, and trying to enjoy the summer offerings of Massachusetts.
Musicologically speaking, I'm working on several projects. One involves the Pittsburgh Symphony, but that is on hold until my dear friends move to Pittsburgh in a few weeks. M has just accepted a professorship at U Pitt (in physics), and he and his wife have bought a house...with plenty of room for guests. So, you see my strategy---free accommodations should never be rejected.
Secondly, it appears I'll be teaching a class entitled "Music in the United States" this fall. So, I'm going through the gratifying/frustrating process of constructing a syllabus. It is a general course for non-majors, and cross-registered with American Studies. I'll be using Richard Crawford's America's Musical Life, which I think will suit my class quite well. Of course I'm struggling with distribution and how much time to spend on the potpourri of musical styles I'll need to cover. I'm considering some overarching themes ( "Music and Religion," "Music and War," for example) to guide the course structure, rather than a strict chronological approach. I'd love to be able to talk about William Billings and William Schuman (New England Triptych) in the same class. Why does this feel so risky to me? (Not a rhetorical question---I'd like to hear your thoughts!)
It is my hope that my connections between ye olde American musicke and modernity will lend some kind of resonance to the subject matter. I don't think these students are taking this particular course so that they can recite some sort of canonized development of music in the United States. The timeline aspect is important, yes, but I think it is secondary to understanding the major interactions between society, culture, politics and music. Isn't that why I'm a musicologist in the first place? So, I'm going to continue to pull from the past and pull from the present, and hopefully the class will come to appreciate music history as part of a greater work in progress.
Thursday, May 08, 2008
Boston Area Musicological/Music Events
I will be posting various events/concerts happening in the Boston area from time to time. This weekend:
1. Harvard-Lyrica Dialogues #4
The Lyrica Society for Word-Music Relations -- www.lyricasociety.org -- is
pleased to announce the fourth and final of its annual Harvard-Lyrica
Dialogues, scheduled from 4-6 PM, 9 May 2008 at Lehman Hall, Dudley House, 2nd
Floor, in Harvard Yard.
This season's Dialogues are themed "Music and Memory -- Music as Memory", and
the final Dialogue, "Revolution and its Discontents", will be an historical and
sociological round-table discussion of Francis Poulenc's opera "The Dialogues of
the Carmelites", set to the play by Georges Bernanos, in turn based upon based
on the novella "The Last on the Scaffold", by Gertrud von le Fort. Von le
Fort's story, a study in crises of conscience, recounts the massacre of the
nuns of the Carmelite convent in Compiègne during the French Revolution, and
the panel will deliberate Beranos's and Poulenc's masterful incarnations.
The event may be found online at:
www.lyricasociety.org/carmelites.pdf
Panelists will include Jeffrey Mehlman of Boston University, Mark DeVoto,
Emeritus, Tufts University, Jann Pasler, University of California, San Diego,
and Paul-André Bempéchat, Harvard University.
Admission is free, and all are welcome.
2. Ruddigore at MIT
Tonight, Tomorrow night and Sunday afternoon:
http://web.mit.edu/gsp/www/Archive/2008spring_ruddigore/index.html
3. Spectrum Singers: Shakespeare in Song: Saturday, May 17th 8pm
Emmanuel Church (15 Newbury St., Back Bay)
I've got discounted tickets! Leave a comment with contact info (blog with email enabled or e-mail address if you are comfortable with that).
http://www.spectrumsingers.org/index.htm
1. Harvard-Lyrica Dialogues #4
The Lyrica Society for Word-Music Relations -- www.lyricasociety.org -- is
pleased to announce the fourth and final of its annual Harvard-Lyrica
Dialogues, scheduled from 4-6 PM, 9 May 2008 at Lehman Hall, Dudley House, 2nd
Floor, in Harvard Yard.
This season's Dialogues are themed "Music and Memory -- Music as Memory", and
the final Dialogue, "Revolution and its Discontents", will be an historical and
sociological round-table discussion of Francis Poulenc's opera "The Dialogues of
the Carmelites", set to the play by Georges Bernanos, in turn based upon based
on the novella "The Last on the Scaffold", by Gertrud von le Fort. Von le
Fort's story, a study in crises of conscience, recounts the massacre of the
nuns of the Carmelite convent in Compiègne during the French Revolution, and
the panel will deliberate Beranos's and Poulenc's masterful incarnations.
The event may be found online at:
www.lyricasociety.org/carmelites.pdf
Panelists will include Jeffrey Mehlman of Boston University, Mark DeVoto,
Emeritus, Tufts University, Jann Pasler, University of California, San Diego,
and Paul-André Bempéchat, Harvard University.
Admission is free, and all are welcome.
2. Ruddigore at MIT
Tonight, Tomorrow night and Sunday afternoon:
http://web.mit.edu/gsp/www/Archive/2008spring_ruddigore/index.html
3. Spectrum Singers: Shakespeare in Song: Saturday, May 17th 8pm
Emmanuel Church (15 Newbury St., Back Bay)
I've got discounted tickets! Leave a comment with contact info (blog with email enabled or e-mail address if you are comfortable with that).
http://www.spectrumsingers.org/index.htm
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
A new lease on blogging
It has been a month since I've last written on this blog. I'm feeling sensitive about this given Phil Ford's recent post over at Dial M. I've given a little bit of thought to WHY I haven't been blogging and I've come up with several reasons:
The first, was a comment that appeared in response to my last post. What was a fun and silly little meme has now been set to music by composing colleague Chris. I take great joy in this "collaboration" (which was also a lovely surprise when I checked my e-mail at 6:30am yesterday). I've never met Chris in person (we've come close!) but here we are with a song: his music, my memeage. :-)
The second, was an analogy offered by Jonathan Bellman at the ever-wonderful Dial M. Blogging for him, he offers, is like "good, solid piano practice." This made me realize something important. Blogging offers an excellent forum to keep my musicological muscles in shape. It will only help as I endeavor to get more papers and articles accepted. Just as my voice has now improved as I am singing again, so shall my musicology. And yes, I care if you listen (read). I need and want the feedback...and blogging allows me to offer my thoughts for your feedback without any review process, political system, or sheer luck of the draw blocking the way. And that is fantastic.
So, in the coming weeks, I hope to be more substantive in my posting and look forward to jumping back into the musicological blogosphere with renewed enthusiasm.
Thank you Phil, Jonathan and Chris!
- a recent stream of professional disappointments
- it is the end of the semester with finals to make, papers to grade, and complaints to be heard
- a general sense of WHY???
The first, was a comment that appeared in response to my last post. What was a fun and silly little meme has now been set to music by composing colleague Chris. I take great joy in this "collaboration" (which was also a lovely surprise when I checked my e-mail at 6:30am yesterday). I've never met Chris in person (we've come close!) but here we are with a song: his music, my memeage. :-)
The second, was an analogy offered by Jonathan Bellman at the ever-wonderful Dial M. Blogging for him, he offers, is like "good, solid piano practice." This made me realize something important. Blogging offers an excellent forum to keep my musicological muscles in shape. It will only help as I endeavor to get more papers and articles accepted. Just as my voice has now improved as I am singing again, so shall my musicology. And yes, I care if you listen (read). I need and want the feedback...and blogging allows me to offer my thoughts for your feedback without any review process, political system, or sheer luck of the draw blocking the way. And that is fantastic.
So, in the coming weeks, I hope to be more substantive in my posting and look forward to jumping back into the musicological blogosphere with renewed enthusiasm.
Thank you Phil, Jonathan and Chris!
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Musical Memorials
I apologize in advance for the somber nature of this post. My absence from the blogging world has been largely due to a very ill young cat named Henry who was suffering from FIP. We had to "put him down" last Thursday and the hole we feel is bigger than we imagined.
But, I'm also thinking about the loved ones, friends and colleagues of two musical lives, each leaving important musical legacies. For those of you who are in the New York area, please note:
A Celebration of the Life of
H.Wiley Hitchcock
Founding Director of the Institute for Studies in American Music and
Distinguished Professor of Music Emeritus, Brooklyn College
and The Graduate Center of The City University of NewYork
Saturday, March 8, 2008
Five o’clock
Saint Peter’s Church, Lexington Avenue at East 54th Street, New York
H. Wiley Hitchcock was an icon in musicology, especially for us Americanists. His Music in the United States was the first book I read that sealed my desire to be an Americanist. I remember meeting him at a conference of the Society for American Music and sensing a joy-filled spirit (sometimes difficult to find at academic conferences). May he rest in peace.
and for those of you in Boston, very short notice I'm afraid:
The Memorial for Craig Smith
The Memorial for Craig Smith, Founder and Artistic Director of Emmanuel Music, will be held on January 31 at 7:30 PM in the sanctuary of Emmanuel Church.
The program will include works by Bach, Schütz, Mozart, Schubert and Brahms. The performers will include current and alumni members of the Orchestra and Chorus of Emmanuel Music.
The public is cordially invited to attend.
Emmanuel Music
15 Newbury Street, Boston
617.536.3356
www.emmanuelmusic.org
An upper-respiratory bug sadly keeps me from this celebration of life tonight. I had the good fortune of seeing Craig Smith conduct at Emmanuel in one of his last performances. I did not know the man, but I know many who hold him in the highest regard. This is a great loss for the music community at large.
But, I'm also thinking about the loved ones, friends and colleagues of two musical lives, each leaving important musical legacies. For those of you who are in the New York area, please note:
A Celebration of the Life of
H.Wiley Hitchcock
Founding Director of the Institute for Studies in American Music and
Distinguished Professor of Music Emeritus, Brooklyn College
and The Graduate Center of The City University of NewYork
Saturday, March 8, 2008
Five o’clock
Saint Peter’s Church, Lexington Avenue at East 54th Street, New York
H. Wiley Hitchcock was an icon in musicology, especially for us Americanists. His Music in the United States was the first book I read that sealed my desire to be an Americanist. I remember meeting him at a conference of the Society for American Music and sensing a joy-filled spirit (sometimes difficult to find at academic conferences). May he rest in peace.
and for those of you in Boston, very short notice I'm afraid:
The Memorial for Craig Smith
The Memorial for Craig Smith, Founder and Artistic Director of Emmanuel Music, will be held on January 31 at 7:30 PM in the sanctuary of Emmanuel Church.
The program will include works by Bach, Schütz, Mozart, Schubert and Brahms. The performers will include current and alumni members of the Orchestra and Chorus of Emmanuel Music.
The public is cordially invited to attend.
Emmanuel Music
15 Newbury Street, Boston
617.536.3356
www.emmanuelmusic.org
An upper-respiratory bug sadly keeps me from this celebration of life tonight. I had the good fortune of seeing Craig Smith conduct at Emmanuel in one of his last performances. I did not know the man, but I know many who hold him in the highest regard. This is a great loss for the music community at large.
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
Norwegian Blogging Colleague
Unfortunately, Jeg/eg snakker/snakkar ikke/ikkje norsk (completely unconjugated and gender neutral, courtesy of WikiTravel), but in the spirit of reciprocation, I'm adding Erik Steinskog's blog to the Music and More Blogroll. His blogroll is quite the reference! And his work looks intriguing. I look forward to reading some of it! Thanks for the listing, Erik!
Monday, January 07, 2008
Candidate Playlists
Ok, ok...I know it is lame to start the year off with a post that merely links to someone else's post, but I'm in the frantic process of finishing a syllabus (makes me rethink my admonishment to students regarding procrastination).
At any rate, Phil Ford offers the campaign trail playlists of the various candidates and some good food for thought (as usual). A couple of years back, James Deaville gave a paper at SAM (Society for American Music) about the impact of music used by CNN, Fox, etc to sell the news (specifically, the war). Music in the Media, is, in my opinion, one of the most relevant musicological endeavors.
Who knows, maybe the use of "Sweet Caroline" will win the hearts of all those Red Sox fans.
This campaign season, keep your eyes AND ears open.
At any rate, Phil Ford offers the campaign trail playlists of the various candidates and some good food for thought (as usual). A couple of years back, James Deaville gave a paper at SAM (Society for American Music) about the impact of music used by CNN, Fox, etc to sell the news (specifically, the war). Music in the Media, is, in my opinion, one of the most relevant musicological endeavors.
Who knows, maybe the use of "Sweet Caroline" will win the hearts of all those Red Sox fans.
This campaign season, keep your eyes AND ears open.
Friday, November 30, 2007
Not So Guilty Pleasures (Cross-Post)
I was invited to guest blog over at Musicology/Matters, and was given permission to cross post. So for those of you who may not frequent musicology blogs, but for various and sundry reasons visit this one, I give you:
At my first meeting of the Society for American Music (mmph years ago), I remember a certain musicologist imploring at the business meeting: "Don't do pop music because it is trendy, do it because it is what you love." (That's a paraphrase, actually.). This statement was greeted with defensive grumbles and nasty whispers as if he had insinuated that pop music scholars were just in it for the trendiness aspect.
That's not it at all, but clearly he exposed some people sitting in that room. I am not a pop music scholar, but his comment made me think about the music that I love. Even though "choral music" can include Haydn's Die Schöpfung, Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, not to mention of a whole slew of medieval and Renaissance masterpieces, it also includes a plethora of short, two to three page cream puffs written for various church choirs and other choral ensembles. It is true that there is often little intellectual mileage to be found in Joe Smith's arrangement of Amazing Grace or Jane Brown's 16 measure introit written for the shoestring choir at St. Anne's-By-The-Lake.* Much of this is Gebrauchsmusik and the composers of said music couldn't care less what musicologists think of it (and rightfully so). Unfortunately, because the label "choral music" includes ALL of this, it often gets excluded from the list of acceptable areas for academic discourse. Medieval and Renaissance choral works get sheltered by the historical musicology crowd and the love for the old. Choral works of Bach, Mozart, and Haydn are extolled as works of Bach, Mozart and Haydn. Most of the choral music of the Romantic period is seen as an example of Romantic ideologies of excess (Berlioz, Verdi) or those occasional studies in harmonic adventure.
That brings us to my area of specialty: twentieth-century American sacred music. Truth be told, it is actually "twentieth and twenty-first- century," but when I tried the label "contemporary" I opened up a door I couldn't shut quickly enough. Rushing toward me came numerous requests to review "O Taste and See" for guitar and folk singer, or CDs by Jars of Clay, or questions about preferences for Amy Grant vs. Rebecca St. James. I could say "modern," but that also opens up its own can of worms. A rose is clearly not a rose when it comes to academic labels.
Not only do I specialize in such a loaded and quixotic category of music, I wrote my dissertation on the impact of the Second Vatican Council on the American Concert Mass. Sexy? No. Misunderstood? Yes. See the following dialogue:
Prof. X: Ah! So you do folk masses.
RM: No. I'm looking at traditional Latin Masses (or Latin-inspired masses) written for the concert hall as responses to Vatican II.
Prof: X: Oh. That's interesting. What composers? Any I might have heard of?
RM: Leonard Bernstein (a Jew), Paul Creston (a very eclectic Catholic) and Lou Harrison (a Buddhist)
Prof. X: (Stunned silence).
Which brings me to my point. We as musicologists need to define to what extent musicology involves musical advocacy. I thought it was important to show that there existed a strong aesthetic reaction to the post-Vatican II liturgical mass, by mainstream composers lying outside of the Church and its particular interests. Do I love sacred choral music? Yes. Do I feel at all guilty about it? No. Would I have been able to spend mmpph years working on a dissertation if I didn't love it? Absolutely not.
I don't think we should have to negotiate personal taste and intellectual duty to any degree that we might find ourselves writing about music for which we care little (either about the music itself or its historical context). Anyone who has ever taught music appreciation will tell you that half the trick is one's own enthusiasm for the music. What kind of artifice are we encouraging if we relegate entire categories of music to the musicological trash-heap? If I write about music, whether it be Steve Reich's Different Trains, Hildegard's Ordo Virtutum, or the Clash's album London Calling (to pull a few examples from the recent AMS conference), I had better believe that there's something there worth writing about and worth sharing with the community at large. That is both our personal duty and our intellectual duty. And while I'm not advocating a "Who Cares if you Listen?" approach to musicology, I am proposing that our own love for the music be enough, and the work we do will speak for itself.
Not everything we love as music listeners will have musicological value, and it is important to recognize that. (How we determine that value is worthy of a fresh round of blog posts.) However, as academicians, we should be defining academe, not the other way around. And in regard to this endeavor, I suggest that the sky be the limit. Let us welcome guilty pleasures and intellectual constructs alike, so that we can be true to what brought us here in the first place, rather than be enslaved to a limited canon.
Not So Guilty Pleasures
Phil and Kariann have offered astute and engaging ideas about this business of "guilty pleasures" and their place in musicology. I will try to offer something fresh and original as a musicologist who specializes in music that is considered by many to be a true guilty pleasure (witness the confessional Facebook group: "I listen to sacred choral/organ music...AND I LIKE IT!").At my first meeting of the Society for American Music (mmph years ago), I remember a certain musicologist imploring at the business meeting: "Don't do pop music because it is trendy, do it because it is what you love." (That's a paraphrase, actually.). This statement was greeted with defensive grumbles and nasty whispers as if he had insinuated that pop music scholars were just in it for the trendiness aspect.
That's not it at all, but clearly he exposed some people sitting in that room. I am not a pop music scholar, but his comment made me think about the music that I love. Even though "choral music" can include Haydn's Die Schöpfung, Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, not to mention of a whole slew of medieval and Renaissance masterpieces, it also includes a plethora of short, two to three page cream puffs written for various church choirs and other choral ensembles. It is true that there is often little intellectual mileage to be found in Joe Smith's arrangement of Amazing Grace or Jane Brown's 16 measure introit written for the shoestring choir at St. Anne's-By-The-Lake.* Much of this is Gebrauchsmusik and the composers of said music couldn't care less what musicologists think of it (and rightfully so). Unfortunately, because the label "choral music" includes ALL of this, it often gets excluded from the list of acceptable areas for academic discourse. Medieval and Renaissance choral works get sheltered by the historical musicology crowd and the love for the old. Choral works of Bach, Mozart, and Haydn are extolled as works of Bach, Mozart and Haydn. Most of the choral music of the Romantic period is seen as an example of Romantic ideologies of excess (Berlioz, Verdi) or those occasional studies in harmonic adventure.
That brings us to my area of specialty: twentieth-century American sacred music. Truth be told, it is actually "twentieth and twenty-first- century," but when I tried the label "contemporary" I opened up a door I couldn't shut quickly enough. Rushing toward me came numerous requests to review "O Taste and See" for guitar and folk singer, or CDs by Jars of Clay, or questions about preferences for Amy Grant vs. Rebecca St. James. I could say "modern," but that also opens up its own can of worms. A rose is clearly not a rose when it comes to academic labels.
Not only do I specialize in such a loaded and quixotic category of music, I wrote my dissertation on the impact of the Second Vatican Council on the American Concert Mass. Sexy? No. Misunderstood? Yes. See the following dialogue:
Prof. X: Ah! So you do folk masses.
RM: No. I'm looking at traditional Latin Masses (or Latin-inspired masses) written for the concert hall as responses to Vatican II.
Prof: X: Oh. That's interesting. What composers? Any I might have heard of?
RM: Leonard Bernstein (a Jew), Paul Creston (a very eclectic Catholic) and Lou Harrison (a Buddhist)
Prof. X: (Stunned silence).
Which brings me to my point. We as musicologists need to define to what extent musicology involves musical advocacy. I thought it was important to show that there existed a strong aesthetic reaction to the post-Vatican II liturgical mass, by mainstream composers lying outside of the Church and its particular interests. Do I love sacred choral music? Yes. Do I feel at all guilty about it? No. Would I have been able to spend mmpph years working on a dissertation if I didn't love it? Absolutely not.
I don't think we should have to negotiate personal taste and intellectual duty to any degree that we might find ourselves writing about music for which we care little (either about the music itself or its historical context). Anyone who has ever taught music appreciation will tell you that half the trick is one's own enthusiasm for the music. What kind of artifice are we encouraging if we relegate entire categories of music to the musicological trash-heap? If I write about music, whether it be Steve Reich's Different Trains, Hildegard's Ordo Virtutum, or the Clash's album London Calling (to pull a few examples from the recent AMS conference), I had better believe that there's something there worth writing about and worth sharing with the community at large. That is both our personal duty and our intellectual duty. And while I'm not advocating a "Who Cares if you Listen?" approach to musicology, I am proposing that our own love for the music be enough, and the work we do will speak for itself.
Not everything we love as music listeners will have musicological value, and it is important to recognize that. (How we determine that value is worthy of a fresh round of blog posts.) However, as academicians, we should be defining academe, not the other way around. And in regard to this endeavor, I suggest that the sky be the limit. Let us welcome guilty pleasures and intellectual constructs alike, so that we can be true to what brought us here in the first place, rather than be enslaved to a limited canon.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Quick Plug: New Musicology Blog!
It is a concert weekend, so I'm running around, but I at the very least wanted to point out a new musicology blog!
Please visit and read the wonderful offerings at:
Musicology Matters
Please visit and read the wonderful offerings at:
Musicology Matters
Thursday, November 08, 2007
Too Many Papers, Not Enough Time: AMS 2007 Wrap-Up
In the past, there have been AMS conferences where I was more of a tourist than a conference attendee. My first conference was "Musical Intersections" in Toronto back in 2000, and the convergence of fifteen musical societies was a bit more than my virgin musicological heart could handle. Toronto is a lovely city. I can particularly recommend the Art Gallery of Ontario.
Then there have been the times of musicological malaise, most noticeably during my dissertating years. I wandered through paper sessions more or less on automatic pilot. I was at those papers to see and be seen. "See me, Dr. X? I'm here listening to your paper. I'll expect a gold star." I'd converse at the receptions. "Oh, and what is your dissertation on?" Press "play." Followed by either a look of total incredulity or a sudden keen interest in the exquisite deviled eggs.
And then, there was this year. Freshly armed with a PhD, I realized I had more to talk about than just my dissertation. It was freeing to use the past tense when the subject came up. I could talk about my current projects and my adjunct teaching. I think I surprised a few people who had long been accustomed to hearing about The Document and only, The Document.
I found myself in sessions where I would have seldom tread in prior years. I no longer felt alien in a medieval session, or guilty about missing one or two papers in my area (especially when the conflict was another paper). AMS once again felt like a smorgasbord of opportunity, and it did not disappoint. I remembered a time, long ago, that I wanted to be a MedievalBaroqueRenaissanceTwentiethCentury Specialist. I felt the sweet disappointment of having too many options.
I saw a lot of phenomenal papers and some good ones. My attendance choices supported friends, former professors, and fed my general intellectual curiosity. And with all these choices, I missed quite a bit, including Ryan Banagale and Phil Ford's presentations, graciously reproduced on their respective blogs.
I'd like to thank everyone involved in this year's conference, from the organizers to the presenters. For the first time in many years, I did not muse about how different my life would be had I chosen International Relations.
For those of you who are interested, see also Phil Gentry's AMS Wrap-Up
and Jonathan Bellman's information on Disinformation.
Then there have been the times of musicological malaise, most noticeably during my dissertating years. I wandered through paper sessions more or less on automatic pilot. I was at those papers to see and be seen. "See me, Dr. X? I'm here listening to your paper. I'll expect a gold star." I'd converse at the receptions. "Oh, and what is your dissertation on?" Press "play." Followed by either a look of total incredulity or a sudden keen interest in the exquisite deviled eggs.
And then, there was this year. Freshly armed with a PhD, I realized I had more to talk about than just my dissertation. It was freeing to use the past tense when the subject came up. I could talk about my current projects and my adjunct teaching. I think I surprised a few people who had long been accustomed to hearing about The Document and only, The Document.
I found myself in sessions where I would have seldom tread in prior years. I no longer felt alien in a medieval session, or guilty about missing one or two papers in my area (especially when the conflict was another paper). AMS once again felt like a smorgasbord of opportunity, and it did not disappoint. I remembered a time, long ago, that I wanted to be a MedievalBaroqueRenaissanceTwentiethCentury Specialist. I felt the sweet disappointment of having too many options.
I saw a lot of phenomenal papers and some good ones. My attendance choices supported friends, former professors, and fed my general intellectual curiosity. And with all these choices, I missed quite a bit, including Ryan Banagale and Phil Ford's presentations, graciously reproduced on their respective blogs.
I'd like to thank everyone involved in this year's conference, from the organizers to the presenters. For the first time in many years, I did not muse about how different my life would be had I chosen International Relations.
For those of you who are interested, see also Phil Gentry's AMS Wrap-Up
and Jonathan Bellman's information on Disinformation.
Friday, November 02, 2007
Crack for Academics: AMS 2007 Post I
Greetings from Quebec City! This will be necessarily brief, as I hope to catch Margot Fassler's paper, "Hildegard's Ordo Virtutum: Theological Meanings and the Problem of Audience."
The highlight of the conference thus far (for me) was the Lecture-Demonstration: "Virtual Acoustics and the Recording of Joseph Haydn's Keyboard Music." While I had to miss the last half hour, I enjoyed the convergence of auditory and acoustic technology with musicology and aesthetics. The discussion brought up questions of authencity: Is it ok to be "inauthentic" yet strive for a different acoustic experience then what one would normally hear? Tom Beghin and his colleagues from McGill have tried to create recordings (through the recreation of original instruments and the virtual reproduction of acoustic environments) which emulate a historical listening experience. Yes, it is idealized and unmuddied by the realities that plagued Lobkowitz Palace and other such locations, but one does not buy a CD of Haydn keyboard sonatas so that they can hear the cook chasing the scullery maid in the background.
One of the better problems to have at a conference is wanting to be in three places at the same time. And while I was not "drinking at the opening-night reception" (or at least not at that moment), I did have to miss Phil Ford and friends during the Committee on Career-Related Issues. How lucky we are that Phil has reproduced his presentation over at Dial M, helping to make his point quite effectively. If blogging is "crack for academics" then I'm all for the addiction.
The highlight of the conference thus far (for me) was the Lecture-Demonstration: "Virtual Acoustics and the Recording of Joseph Haydn's Keyboard Music." While I had to miss the last half hour, I enjoyed the convergence of auditory and acoustic technology with musicology and aesthetics. The discussion brought up questions of authencity: Is it ok to be "inauthentic" yet strive for a different acoustic experience then what one would normally hear? Tom Beghin and his colleagues from McGill have tried to create recordings (through the recreation of original instruments and the virtual reproduction of acoustic environments) which emulate a historical listening experience. Yes, it is idealized and unmuddied by the realities that plagued Lobkowitz Palace and other such locations, but one does not buy a CD of Haydn keyboard sonatas so that they can hear the cook chasing the scullery maid in the background.
One of the better problems to have at a conference is wanting to be in three places at the same time. And while I was not "drinking at the opening-night reception" (or at least not at that moment), I did have to miss Phil Ford and friends during the Committee on Career-Related Issues. How lucky we are that Phil has reproduced his presentation over at Dial M, helping to make his point quite effectively. If blogging is "crack for academics" then I'm all for the addiction.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Sound vs. Sight
Roger Bourland posits, "Music has to be SEEN nowadays, and not just heard." He is understandably frustrated that people more readily click on YouTube video clips than mp3 examples. I also find myself discouraged by our increasingly visual culture.
While there is nothing wrong with visual arts, there does seem to be an unfair emphasis on the visual over the aural. I assert to my music appreciation students that while they are good hearers, they are not necessarily good listeners. Hearing is a sense, but listening is a cultivated skill. A parallel might be made between looking vs. seeing. With the increasing amount of input in today's world, I think listening and seeing are both falling by the wayside (bedfellows with critical thinking). However, a typical non-music major, when given the option between the two, will chose seeing over listening. I would also submit, that when an aural element is paired with a visual element, it is usually the former that gets short-changed. It is easier for most people to focus on the visual element and put the aural in the background. Perhaps this is because the aural (in particular music) is so often the background of our daily existence.
There have been many times I have had to close my eyes to remove a visual distraction in order to focus fully on my listening. I often have my students close their eyes (always an interesting exercise in self-consciousness) and nine times out of ten, they report being able to "hear" better. While I'm not sure wearing earplugs would necessarily enhance the visual experience (at least not immediately), this business of sensory isolation is important. It has long been agreed that people who are blind, deaf, etc...often have other enhanced senses to compensate. I wonder if those of us with all our senses compensate by dulling all of them. We couldn't possibly give priority to our smelling, tasting, touching, seeing, and listening all at the same time. So, we are forced to make choices.
More evidence that we prefer the visual over the aural is presented by the absence of those elements. More people will readily choose silence (some crave it, actually) over darkness. Not that absolute silence OR darkness are easy to come by, but it is relative. Silence in contrast to sound is discernible. Some film makers have inserted blank screens as sort of visual "grand pauses." But even then, the darkness is confined to the screen.
In the end, there has to be room for both seeing and listening. But until people become more practiced listeners, the visual will often overcome the aural. So what does this mean for music?
In the case of film music, I don't think the relationship is exactly symbiotic, even if it is meant to be. If I show a student a film and ask him/her to describe it (outside of a music class context), rarely do I hear anything about the music. Sometimes, when asked about the music directly, students will have something to say, but most often they tell me they've got to "watch it" again. Many composers (of operas, of films, etc...) wind up writing suites of their scores. Ostensibly, this is because it gives the music some sort of form and context outside of the film or opera. But does it then become something different? I think about Corigliano's Red Violin for instance. I wish I could erase my memory of the movie (just once) so that I could listen to the suite without superimposing images from the movie. I feel enslaved to the visual. While I recognize that the original material was composed to accompany the visual, it seems that the visual is forever bound to the aural, even when presented in isolation (as with a concert suite). Maybe that isn't necessarily a bad thing (in the case of film music), but I for one, would like the option.
While there is nothing wrong with visual arts, there does seem to be an unfair emphasis on the visual over the aural. I assert to my music appreciation students that while they are good hearers, they are not necessarily good listeners. Hearing is a sense, but listening is a cultivated skill. A parallel might be made between looking vs. seeing. With the increasing amount of input in today's world, I think listening and seeing are both falling by the wayside (bedfellows with critical thinking). However, a typical non-music major, when given the option between the two, will chose seeing over listening. I would also submit, that when an aural element is paired with a visual element, it is usually the former that gets short-changed. It is easier for most people to focus on the visual element and put the aural in the background. Perhaps this is because the aural (in particular music) is so often the background of our daily existence.
There have been many times I have had to close my eyes to remove a visual distraction in order to focus fully on my listening. I often have my students close their eyes (always an interesting exercise in self-consciousness) and nine times out of ten, they report being able to "hear" better. While I'm not sure wearing earplugs would necessarily enhance the visual experience (at least not immediately), this business of sensory isolation is important. It has long been agreed that people who are blind, deaf, etc...often have other enhanced senses to compensate. I wonder if those of us with all our senses compensate by dulling all of them. We couldn't possibly give priority to our smelling, tasting, touching, seeing, and listening all at the same time. So, we are forced to make choices.
More evidence that we prefer the visual over the aural is presented by the absence of those elements. More people will readily choose silence (some crave it, actually) over darkness. Not that absolute silence OR darkness are easy to come by, but it is relative. Silence in contrast to sound is discernible. Some film makers have inserted blank screens as sort of visual "grand pauses." But even then, the darkness is confined to the screen.
In the end, there has to be room for both seeing and listening. But until people become more practiced listeners, the visual will often overcome the aural. So what does this mean for music?
In the case of film music, I don't think the relationship is exactly symbiotic, even if it is meant to be. If I show a student a film and ask him/her to describe it (outside of a music class context), rarely do I hear anything about the music. Sometimes, when asked about the music directly, students will have something to say, but most often they tell me they've got to "watch it" again. Many composers (of operas, of films, etc...) wind up writing suites of their scores. Ostensibly, this is because it gives the music some sort of form and context outside of the film or opera. But does it then become something different? I think about Corigliano's Red Violin for instance. I wish I could erase my memory of the movie (just once) so that I could listen to the suite without superimposing images from the movie. I feel enslaved to the visual. While I recognize that the original material was composed to accompany the visual, it seems that the visual is forever bound to the aural, even when presented in isolation (as with a concert suite). Maybe that isn't necessarily a bad thing (in the case of film music), but I for one, would like the option.
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Because you never have a second chance...
I've decided to start a weekly (maybe more) feature called First Impressions in New Listening (FINL*).
Ideally, every day I'd like to hear a piece of music I've never heard before. At the present time, that is probably not practical.
The music can be recently composed, relatively "new," or an older piece with which I'm unfamiliar. I'm going to write down my first impressions. Keep in mind they are exactly that--FIRST impressions, based on a single hearing, without a score. My commentary will reflect that which "jumps" out at me (if anything).
If you are familiar with the piece, feel free to leave your own impressions (first or otherwise) in the comments.
This week, we start off with something relatively local:
Pozzi Escot, Concerto for Piano and Orchestra or Chamber Orchestra (1982)
ALBUM: POLYUTTERANCES
Peformers: New England Conservatory Chamber Orchestra, cond. Tamara Brooks, with Randall Hodgkinson, piano.
*The irony of the acronym is unintentional.
Ideally, every day I'd like to hear a piece of music I've never heard before. At the present time, that is probably not practical.
The music can be recently composed, relatively "new," or an older piece with which I'm unfamiliar. I'm going to write down my first impressions. Keep in mind they are exactly that--FIRST impressions, based on a single hearing, without a score. My commentary will reflect that which "jumps" out at me (if anything).
If you are familiar with the piece, feel free to leave your own impressions (first or otherwise) in the comments.
This week, we start off with something relatively local:
Pozzi Escot, Concerto for Piano and Orchestra or Chamber Orchestra (1982)
ALBUM: POLYUTTERANCES
Peformers: New England Conservatory Chamber Orchestra, cond. Tamara Brooks, with Randall Hodgkinson, piano.
More of a "concerto" in the sense of Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra, this mini-concerto (just under six minutes) of three movements could be a single movement.
The opening movement is the yin to the yang of the closing movement. The first movement draws out a motive in the trumpet, like musical taffy. The final movement takes a related motive, but squeezes it and condenses it in a rush to the finish. The piano makes rather abrupt statements, but at no time is there ever a sense that there is one soloist.
These outer movements flank an inner movement of a more obligatory inward nature...atmospheric strings (recalling Ligeti) punctuated by the piano. This slower middle movement is most revealing of the concerto conception.
The opening movement is the yin to the yang of the closing movement. The first movement draws out a motive in the trumpet, like musical taffy. The final movement takes a related motive, but squeezes it and condenses it in a rush to the finish. The piano makes rather abrupt statements, but at no time is there ever a sense that there is one soloist.
These outer movements flank an inner movement of a more obligatory inward nature...atmospheric strings (recalling Ligeti) punctuated by the piano. This slower middle movement is most revealing of the concerto conception.
I enjoyed this piece and will listen to it several times. The texture is dense, so there is much to be unearthed.
----------------------------------------------------*The irony of the acronym is unintentional.
Sunday, July 08, 2007
On Teaching (Part I)
As someone who has taught and wants to continue to teach, when I read things like THIS it makes me terribly sad. While I know that particular example was meant as satire, it is not without a grain of truth. Academia seems to have a love-hate relationship with teaching. At some universities there is definitely more hate than love.
While I do not have vast years of experience, I do have a good sampling of different teaching environments...as a teaching assistant, as an instructor of my peers, as a lecturer for 300 students, as an instructor of record for 7 music majors at a small Christian liberal arts institution, and as an instructor for 25 non-music majors at the same institution. I have looked upon each of these opportunities as a learning experience. I hope that this does not change even when I have tenure somewhere.
I must say, I love the seminar model. While I have witnessed many wonderful lectures, my preference is for interaction...among the students and the professor. One of the best seminars I ever had was one where the professor gave an angle to the course with which he wasn't totally familiar. While "Women in Music of the Italian Renaissance" was a topic near and dear to his heart, we investigated some feminist theory which he admitted was a "stretch" for him. In the end, I think we ALL came out of it with more than if he had merely regurgitated the same syllabus of "standards" with which he was familiar.
I'm struck at how often a TAship has very little to do with merit and everything to do with financial aid. This is a huge disservice to the students and to the TA. I happen to think I've become a pretty great teacher, but I certainly didn't start out that way. When I was given my first TAship, I didn't even know what a TA was! I had never had a TA in undergrad. And there I was, expected to guide students who, in some cases, were merely a year behind me. I understand that first year TAships can't exactly be based on experience, so I'd revise my statement to say that continued TAships should be merit based. And merit? What does that mean?
The "merit" of teaching
Here are my top 5 indications of good teaching:
1. Never claiming perfection (but no self-deprecation either)
2. Willingness to learn
3. Seeing each class, no matter the subject, no matter how many times the course has been taught, as a new experience.
4. A student-centered model (as much as possible--difficult in large lecture classes).
5. A desire to teach in the first place (!) not just viewing it as an obligatory side-effect of being paid to do research.
So while it might be easy to fall into the cynicism expressed by the folks over at Rate Your Students (see first link), I'd much rather go the way of Barnet Bound.
Part II coming soon!
While I do not have vast years of experience, I do have a good sampling of different teaching environments...as a teaching assistant, as an instructor of my peers, as a lecturer for 300 students, as an instructor of record for 7 music majors at a small Christian liberal arts institution, and as an instructor for 25 non-music majors at the same institution. I have looked upon each of these opportunities as a learning experience. I hope that this does not change even when I have tenure somewhere.
I must say, I love the seminar model. While I have witnessed many wonderful lectures, my preference is for interaction...among the students and the professor. One of the best seminars I ever had was one where the professor gave an angle to the course with which he wasn't totally familiar. While "Women in Music of the Italian Renaissance" was a topic near and dear to his heart, we investigated some feminist theory which he admitted was a "stretch" for him. In the end, I think we ALL came out of it with more than if he had merely regurgitated the same syllabus of "standards" with which he was familiar.
I'm struck at how often a TAship has very little to do with merit and everything to do with financial aid. This is a huge disservice to the students and to the TA. I happen to think I've become a pretty great teacher, but I certainly didn't start out that way. When I was given my first TAship, I didn't even know what a TA was! I had never had a TA in undergrad. And there I was, expected to guide students who, in some cases, were merely a year behind me. I understand that first year TAships can't exactly be based on experience, so I'd revise my statement to say that continued TAships should be merit based. And merit? What does that mean?
The "merit" of teaching
Here are my top 5 indications of good teaching:
1. Never claiming perfection (but no self-deprecation either)
2. Willingness to learn
3. Seeing each class, no matter the subject, no matter how many times the course has been taught, as a new experience.
4. A student-centered model (as much as possible--difficult in large lecture classes).
5. A desire to teach in the first place (!) not just viewing it as an obligatory side-effect of being paid to do research.
So while it might be easy to fall into the cynicism expressed by the folks over at Rate Your Students (see first link), I'd much rather go the way of Barnet Bound.
Part II coming soon!
Sunday, May 13, 2007
New Meaning for the Boston "Pops"
As I'm sure everyone knows by now, this past Wednesday's Boston Pops concert featured a brawl between a talker and a shusher in the second balcony. While most news features have capitalized on the incongruity between a brawl and a symphony concert, Jeremy Eichler's thoughtful review in the Globe asks some more important questions.
The audience that night was a mixed bag of Pops subscribers, benefit concert-goers, and Ben Folds fans--not the normal Symphony Hall makeup. In Eichler's opinion, the Pops could have better seized upon the opportunity with their programming of the first half. Instead of the ubiquitous Dvorak "Carnival" Overture, Eichler suggests:
"...a short, gnarly, and exhilarating work of 20th-century music, offering a quick glimpse of, say, the ecstatic washes of color in Messiaen, or the quivering extraterrestrial sound worlds of a Ligeti score?"
As an advocate of contemporary music, I give Eichler's suggestion a resounding "right on!" As a practical observer of concert audiences, however, I'm forced to note that the inclusion of such a piece would probably kill the "pops" ethos. But maybe therein lies the problem.
We tend to categorize and pigeonhole repertoire to such an extent there is little to no flexibility, even when the audience might afford the opportunity. We have "Early Music" concerts, "New Music" concerts, "Pops" concerts (that's where all the film music goes, folks!), and "Classics" concerts. In a recent article in the New Yorker, Alex Ross discusses how Esa-Pekka Salonen has tried valiantly to usher in contemporary music as part of the LA Phil's standard repertoire (with varying levels of success). Maybe the element of surprise should be more standard for concerts nowadays. Sure, reel the regulars in with a big seller, but have a couple of "TBAs" on the program. Vary it: a newly commissioned work (short), a film music suite, an oldie-but-a-goodie. I wonder what would happen if you had audiences coming to see one or two works, and being stretched just a little tiny bit.
It is truly hard to stand outside myself and speculate as to my reaction as a non-music specializing concertgoer. But I think that I'd be quite okay with hearing one or two of the Ligeti piano etudes, even if I came to hear the 1812 Overture or a medley of the best of John Williams. Idealistic? Maybe. Optimistic? Assuredly.
(Cross-posted at LiveJournal)
The audience that night was a mixed bag of Pops subscribers, benefit concert-goers, and Ben Folds fans--not the normal Symphony Hall makeup. In Eichler's opinion, the Pops could have better seized upon the opportunity with their programming of the first half. Instead of the ubiquitous Dvorak "Carnival" Overture, Eichler suggests:
"...a short, gnarly, and exhilarating work of 20th-century music, offering a quick glimpse of, say, the ecstatic washes of color in Messiaen, or the quivering extraterrestrial sound worlds of a Ligeti score?"
As an advocate of contemporary music, I give Eichler's suggestion a resounding "right on!" As a practical observer of concert audiences, however, I'm forced to note that the inclusion of such a piece would probably kill the "pops" ethos. But maybe therein lies the problem.
We tend to categorize and pigeonhole repertoire to such an extent there is little to no flexibility, even when the audience might afford the opportunity. We have "Early Music" concerts, "New Music" concerts, "Pops" concerts (that's where all the film music goes, folks!), and "Classics" concerts. In a recent article in the New Yorker, Alex Ross discusses how Esa-Pekka Salonen has tried valiantly to usher in contemporary music as part of the LA Phil's standard repertoire (with varying levels of success). Maybe the element of surprise should be more standard for concerts nowadays. Sure, reel the regulars in with a big seller, but have a couple of "TBAs" on the program. Vary it: a newly commissioned work (short), a film music suite, an oldie-but-a-goodie. I wonder what would happen if you had audiences coming to see one or two works, and being stretched just a little tiny bit.
It is truly hard to stand outside myself and speculate as to my reaction as a non-music specializing concertgoer. But I think that I'd be quite okay with hearing one or two of the Ligeti piano etudes, even if I came to hear the 1812 Overture or a medley of the best of John Williams. Idealistic? Maybe. Optimistic? Assuredly.
(Cross-posted at LiveJournal)
Monday, April 09, 2007
Holey Scholarship
In a thought-provoking discussion with DK on Thursday, we talked about the idea that in academia, nothing you ever publish will be all that you want it to be. In some sense, all articles, conference papers, etc., have that feeling of the night-before-it's-due seminar paper. You could have always done more and there will always be an imperfect paragraph or an underdeveloped idea.
Initially, I was disheartened by this thought. I used to be a perfectionist and this goes against that tendency. But, giving it some thought, maybe that's what perpetuates our field! Just like God would cease to be if people of faith had all the answers, maybe the "holes" in our work are absolutely necessary to sustain scholarship.
That said, I am NOT advocating lazy scholarship There are divots, and then there are deep, gaping chasms. I guess we have to set our own guidelines, in some respects. Maybe that's where we should start...ask ourselves "What is important?" What is important might change in different contexts, sure. But there should be some sort of baseline intellectual integrity that we establish for ourselves...some minimum level of "I've done my work" even if the work isn't polished or finessed.
I think most of us do that naturally and I'd venture that we've all had those moments where we knowingly sacrificed that integrity (and probably got the response we deserved). The hard part is establishing that integrity as some sort of uniform mandate. We know that there are the "scholars" who basically amount to yellow journalists. If they have holes in their research, they either plagiarize or simply manufacture the facts. Sometimes this is because they are lazy or opportunists. But I wonder how much of this has been stimulated by an ever-increasing need fill in every last hole in order to establish any kind of real credibility.
I once heard a paper based entirely on someone else's gap in another paper. It was not a large gap, just a reasonable question mark that, once answered, would have perpetuated exploration into different and exciting offshoots. But instead, this paper chose to belabor the point to the extent that the whole reason for the topic ceased to exist. It was obvious, at least to me, that this person had absolutely nothing new to contribute, but only wanted to jump up and down and alert everyone to the emperor's nakedness. Even that fails to be all that useful at some point.
So, to summarize this meandering and hole-ridden post....here's to gaps, and holes, and divots, and cracks. Let's try to fill them in, but not at the cost of forgetting the joy of inquiry as our impetus.
(Cross-posted to LiveJournal)
Initially, I was disheartened by this thought. I used to be a perfectionist and this goes against that tendency. But, giving it some thought, maybe that's what perpetuates our field! Just like God would cease to be if people of faith had all the answers, maybe the "holes" in our work are absolutely necessary to sustain scholarship.
That said, I am NOT advocating lazy scholarship There are divots, and then there are deep, gaping chasms. I guess we have to set our own guidelines, in some respects. Maybe that's where we should start...ask ourselves "What is important?" What is important might change in different contexts, sure. But there should be some sort of baseline intellectual integrity that we establish for ourselves...some minimum level of "I've done my work" even if the work isn't polished or finessed.
I think most of us do that naturally and I'd venture that we've all had those moments where we knowingly sacrificed that integrity (and probably got the response we deserved). The hard part is establishing that integrity as some sort of uniform mandate. We know that there are the "scholars" who basically amount to yellow journalists. If they have holes in their research, they either plagiarize or simply manufacture the facts. Sometimes this is because they are lazy or opportunists. But I wonder how much of this has been stimulated by an ever-increasing need fill in every last hole in order to establish any kind of real credibility.
I once heard a paper based entirely on someone else's gap in another paper. It was not a large gap, just a reasonable question mark that, once answered, would have perpetuated exploration into different and exciting offshoots. But instead, this paper chose to belabor the point to the extent that the whole reason for the topic ceased to exist. It was obvious, at least to me, that this person had absolutely nothing new to contribute, but only wanted to jump up and down and alert everyone to the emperor's nakedness. Even that fails to be all that useful at some point.
So, to summarize this meandering and hole-ridden post....here's to gaps, and holes, and divots, and cracks. Let's try to fill them in, but not at the cost of forgetting the joy of inquiry as our impetus.
(Cross-posted to LiveJournal)
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