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I only just became aware of this composer. He graduated from Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota at about the time that my teachers at the University of Minnesota (Paul Fetler, Eric Stokes, Dominick Argento) were starting to establish their practices.
Mr. Sigbjörnsson worked tirelessly at the Icelandic Academy of Arts and on Icelandic National Radio as an advocate and curator of the musical life in his native country. Until lately, his music has been little-known. This music from 1981 is experimental for its time and has an audience of less than 10,000 (I'm pretty certain). But the nature of the internet and social media has radically altered the size and nature of his audience in two profound ways:
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I think many teachers of music composition train their students to create "sticky" melodies (something that are memorable, even unforgettable). One of the melodies I think demonstrates stickiness is James Brown's melody for "Please, Please, Please."
I'd love to hear if you find this melody especially memorable. What techniques does Mr. Brown (!) use to create the stickiness. Here are just a few of the things my students and I have listed as the elements of stickiness...
What do you think?
I've been on a music tour bus for more than four weeks playing Christmas music with pianist Lorie Line. Someday, I'll post her music but it is now Epiphany, and I am in a self-reflective mood and this music suits me.
This particular composition by Pärt steadies my breathing at first and like Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings raises my temperature ever so slowly until I find that there is a pounding in my chest. Pärt's compositions mirror one's meditation on resounding bells, tintinnabullations. This music centers around the focus you bring to the listening experience. If you've never heard it, do yourself a favor -- pause...calm your mind and body...close your eyes...concentrate your breathing...focus on your heart beating...and you will be rewarded.
The epitome and genius of cool, in my book, is António Carlos Jobim (aka Tom Jobim). He is cool, in the superficial sense, because of his personal affect: well-educated, urbanity, humor, nonchalance, understated, Brazilian in the 60s. He invented cool in the 60s. Watch this video of him and Sinatra -- who is cool and who wants to be cool?
More interesting to me, is his more substantial and lasting cool. He melds together a sophisticated harmonic language with simple (sometimes monotonous) melodies; pessimism (no other word will do) and frustrated desires is his tone; love, life, society, and humanity is his poetic inspiration. This particular song (The Waters of March) captures his essence more than any of dozens of remarkable songs. Pessimism and hope woven together in lyric and harmony. Ah. Jobim.
A stick, a stone
It's the end of the road It's the rest of a stump It's a little alone It's a sliver of glass It is life, it's the sun It is night, it is death It's a trap, it's a gun The oak when it blooms A fox in the brush A knot in the wood The song of a thrush The wood of the wind A cliff, a fall A scratch, a lump It is nothing at all It's the wind blowing free It's the end of the slope It's a beam, it's a void It's a hunch, it's a hope And the river bank talks Of the waters of March It's the end of the strain The joy in your heart The foot, the ground The flesh and the bone The beat of the road A slingshot's stone A fish, a flash A silvery glow A fight, a bet The range of a bow The bed of the well The end of the line The dismay in the face It's a loss, it's a find A spear, a spike A point, a nail A drip, a drop The end of the tale A truckload of bricks In the soft morning light The shot of a gun In the dead of the night A mile, a must A thrust, a bump It's a girl, it's a rhyme It's a cold, it's the mumps The plan of the house The body in bed And the car that got stuck It's the mud, it's the mud Afloat, adrift A flight, a wing A hawk, a quail The promise of spring And the riverbank talks Of the waters of March It's the promise of life It's the joy in your heart A stick, a stone It's the end of the road It's the rest of a stump It's a little alone A snake, a stick It is John, it is Joe It's a thorn in your hand And a cut in your toe A point, a grain A bee, a bite A blink, a buzzard A sudden stroke of night A pin, a needle A sting, a pain A snail, a riddle A wasp, a stain A pass in the mountains A horse and a mule In the distance the shelves Rode three shadows of blue And the riverbank talks Of the waters of March It's the promise of life In your heart, in your heart A stick, a stone The end of the road The rest of a stump A lonesome road A sliver of glass A life, the sun A knife, a death The end of the run And the riverbank talks Of the waters of March It's the end of all strain It's the joy in your heart
Pink Floyd's album, "ummagumma" has a song about an axe murderer and a song inspired by electronic music ("Several Species..."). After the racket and horror, this sweet bird song á la Leonard Cohen calms the waters until comedy strikes. Listen.
Lesson for my ears: synchcopation of affect.
Gracyna Baciewicz is one of those composers that I believe other composers already know. After she passed away in 1969, I was afraid her music would become lost (up until recently).
Her Quartet #7 really speaks to me with great vigor, an unflinching stare, powerful theatricality, clarity of expression, the long view. I love this music. Lesson: No energy is ever lost. Do your best.
"Shine" is a song by the now-former Bear Attack. Co-written by Eric Radloff and Mia Minichiello. Eric is a colleague at Junior Composers. He's a former student but is now a colleague. I love the stickiness of the melody and the production elements "Shine" with great power pop.
I've met Eric's significant other, Jenna, and I think an earlier, simpler demo version of this song is very strong -- many times the demo carries more authentic, unvarnished appeal to me than the "produced" sound of the final version..Some mornings, I wake to this song playing in ear (a strong endorsement) because the ear always nose.
A colleague suggested an Irish ensemble's recording to me (thank you, Robert Rumbolz). I listened to it and was mesmerized by this piece by Nico Muhly.
Young musicians aren't young for very long. They grow and age and gain experience and begin to attract an audience just by "doing" what musicians do. An example that I'm watching right now is a young woman who uses the stage name, Nahre Sol. Her name in reality is Alice Hwang.
She is a pianist and composer and member of a trio of musicians that put on recitals in Toronto. Their name is Happenstance. Read more about the group and about Alice, here. I like how she is doing what she is doing. Her music is very attractive to my ear. Her work reminds me of the act of musicking (See Christopher Small's book of the same name). The ideas are very pianistic and remind me also of Christopher O'Riley's re-working of RadioHead. Does the fact that one reminds you of another (previous) person's work make the new work derivative? I wonder if we should care at all about this question but I've heard it used in a dismissive way in music panel discussions and board rooms when describing an artist's music. I believe "derivative" is meant to be mean and critical. It makes one sound smart. It is nothing less than musical assassination. (I know this is a provocative use of language. It is meant to be.) No creative work is possible in a vacuum. There are no original ideas, just unique applications of ideas that have been around the world, for a very long time. The world is becoming smaller and more inter-connected; we are always learning and borrowing from each other. All the time. Creative people know that they are performing a magic trick; we pass ourselves off as unique and as sprung from the brow of Orpheus. But it ain't so. We learn from each other and exchange music ideas every day. Our invention contributes to the next person's contributions which is a contribution to the next person's...and so.
Lou Harrison was a Eusonian composer. He disliked the term "American" because it improperly consolidated two continents' cultures in naming one country. But to consider him a cranky PC-er would be to misunderstand the pure joy he found in exploring and celebrating musical cultures on every continent.
Ironically, his repertoire - his legacy - may become controversial because it can be heard to appropriate those very cultures he embraced. Lou and his colleagues, including Henry Cowell and John Cage and Steve Reich, built their musical catalogues around the inspiration they've taken from "world musics." Their repertoires can be seen as an "appropriation" which often happens when White, privileged, male composers adapt and profit from the musical sounds and practices of non-White cultures. This uniquely evocative and sumptuous suite for violin, piano and small orchestra is exhibit A. It is one of my favorite pieces by Lou. I came to know Lou's music while working for the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. Dennis Russell Davies was the music director and championed Lou's music before and after leading the ensemble. The piece evokes the meter changes and the ostinati of gamelan music, pentatonic scales, melodic parallels at the 4th and 5th and the minimization of Western musical development. To Western ears, it can be heard as "oriental." To uninformed ears it can be heard as appropriation. Lou Harrison, this incredibly important composer, this Eusonian and world composer who was a generous and enthusiastic advocate for many cultures, may become the victim of deliberate suppression as a result of our new and widely held, cultural, world-view. The important role Lou played in awakening musicians to each other's presence may have the unintended consequence of limiting awareness of his music. That would be a cultural crime, I think. Long live Lou Harrison! Long live the intersections between West and East, North and South! May Lou's music draw these worlds together for ages to come. |
AuthorComposer Randall Davidson creates music, and performs, produces, and promotes music of others. This blog is an annotated, virtual playlist of the music that he loves and that he calls "sticky" (aka memorable). Archives
September 2019
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