Following up on a comment on Little Hits' recent entry on Zumpano (New Pornographer A.C. Newman's old band), I found a copy of that band's contribution to a Ptolemaic Terrascope CD, "The Mods of Christmastown." I'd agree with James, the guy who mentioned the song, that in some ways the track is a dress rehearsal for the New Pornographers: a bit less extravagantly dressed, and the lyrics rather more plainspoken, but still Newman's melodic gifts are on display.
Going even further back in the Newman discography, here's "E-Z Bake Oven" from Superconductor, the guitar-clusterfuck spoof-metal act in which Newman sang and guitar'd. There are no credits with the CD, so I'm not sure if Newman had any input into the songwriting, but he's audible, shouting away. Actually, something about the melodic line sounds Newmanesque to me (might just be a clever illusion, though). What I like is the genius idea that what the song needed was a pedal steel on the fade...
Zumpano "The Mods of Christmastown"
Superconductor "E-Z Bake Oven"
1.30.2007
1.25.2007
actually a superhero based on Thelonious Monk would be way cool
I just watched Batman Begins via Netflix (yes, as usual, I'm way behind the movie curve...). I liked it pretty well, although I thought the beginning of the film was a bit draggy. One of the best minor bits, though, was that they hired Thelonious Monk to write the little piano bit that opened the access to the Batcave via the library. Okay, not really (note to the chronologically challenged: Mr. Monk has been dead lo the many a year) - but the plinky little theme of three notes doubled in parallel seconds had a certain Monkian piquancy. (Mmmm...piquant monkey! Or so Bucky Katt would say.)
Actually, I think I returned the DVD too soon: now I can't check this, but I wonder if whoever came up with that little theme was consciously paying homage to the Batman TV series theme. Those interjections of "Batman" (along with horns) which gave that theme a very distinctive texture? Parallel seconds.
In fact - and now I might be stretching it, and I really wish I still had the DVD and a copy of the Batman TV theme to compare - remember in the TV theme those horn blats that went along with the famous BIFF!! BANG!! action graphics? I seem to recall that they went in a sequence of note/lower note/higher note...which is exactly the sequence of the piano-key key to the Batcave in Batman Begins. A really clever composer would have used the same notes.
Or at least, a really geeky composer.
Actually, I think I returned the DVD too soon: now I can't check this, but I wonder if whoever came up with that little theme was consciously paying homage to the Batman TV series theme. Those interjections of "Batman" (along with horns) which gave that theme a very distinctive texture? Parallel seconds.
In fact - and now I might be stretching it, and I really wish I still had the DVD and a copy of the Batman TV theme to compare - remember in the TV theme those horn blats that went along with the famous BIFF!! BANG!! action graphics? I seem to recall that they went in a sequence of note/lower note/higher note...which is exactly the sequence of the piano-key key to the Batcave in Batman Begins. A really clever composer would have used the same notes.
Or at least, a really geeky composer.
1.23.2007
in which the author succumbs to a common gambit
via The Shy Turnip (that is to say, that's where this quote comes from):
My nemesis this time is the nefarious Summervillain, he of the glyphic blog. The problem, or so I think at first, is that what's "weird" to someone else might not seem weird to me. I will try to triangulate to some hypothetical outside perspective regardless.
1. When I pick up a free newspaper (such as the print edition of The Onion), I never pick up the top copy but always grab one two or three deep in the stack. I'm not sure why - sometimes the top copy's been ruffled with, but even if it looks utterly pristine, sheer habit means I'll grab one from beneath it.
2. I don't like eating the same food two meals in a row (even though I'm fine with leftovers from restaurants), even if those two meals are one day's dinner and the next day's lunch (breakfast doesn't count - since it's almost always the same: a piece of toast with a drizzle of olive oil, sometimes infused olive oil. Weird Thing 2.5: I don't like eating the same thing all the time...except for breakfast. Probably because I'm not awake enough to make decisions at that point.)
3. Rose and I have odd little rituals and superstitions around certain numbers, particularly times and particularly clocks. 11:11 is especially auspicious, but any time with repeated digits is good. Same is true with miles on car odometers. (These rituals and superstitions are entirely for fun, not that we actually believe in their effects.)
4. This is hardly news to anyone who reads this place regularly, but I'm rather more than usually invested in particular issues of punctuation and grammar (notably, misplaced apostrophes and quotation marks).
5. I have a very mild spatial dysfunction that manifests itself in difficulty navigating from point to point from one street grid system to another set at irregular angles to it. (Look at a map of the east side of Milwaukee for an example: I'm always driving further than I need to around there because I miscalculate or misremember the best route.) Similarly, certain buildings and intersections can confuse me if they're too self-similar: an intersection where buildings on all four corners are kind of similar, or a building whose hallways look alike and which offers long and short routes from one point to the next (another local example: Mitchell Hall on the UWM campus).
6. My left shoulder is slightly lower than my right one, a consequence of a car accident I was in about fifteen years ago. There's no functional impairment.
Now, on to the victimization portion of our platter, sports fans. I think I will go off to the Comics Curmudgeon site and find some likely suspects with blogs over there...like Nyssa23, Non-Shannon, and yellojkt. And a few other folks - such as the redoubtable Flasshe, and my Milwaukee compatriot Czeltic Girl, and the fabbo head 'cake flipper of the Intellectual House o' Pancakes, Paula.
Each player of this game starts with “6 weird things about you”. Each person who gets tagged needs to write a blog post of their own 6 weird things as well as clearly state this rule. After you state your 6 weird things, you need to choose 6 people to be tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave a comment that says “you’re tagged” in their comments and tell them to read your blog for information as to what it means.
My nemesis this time is the nefarious Summervillain, he of the glyphic blog. The problem, or so I think at first, is that what's "weird" to someone else might not seem weird to me. I will try to triangulate to some hypothetical outside perspective regardless.
1. When I pick up a free newspaper (such as the print edition of The Onion), I never pick up the top copy but always grab one two or three deep in the stack. I'm not sure why - sometimes the top copy's been ruffled with, but even if it looks utterly pristine, sheer habit means I'll grab one from beneath it.
2. I don't like eating the same food two meals in a row (even though I'm fine with leftovers from restaurants), even if those two meals are one day's dinner and the next day's lunch (breakfast doesn't count - since it's almost always the same: a piece of toast with a drizzle of olive oil, sometimes infused olive oil. Weird Thing 2.5: I don't like eating the same thing all the time...except for breakfast. Probably because I'm not awake enough to make decisions at that point.)
3. Rose and I have odd little rituals and superstitions around certain numbers, particularly times and particularly clocks. 11:11 is especially auspicious, but any time with repeated digits is good. Same is true with miles on car odometers. (These rituals and superstitions are entirely for fun, not that we actually believe in their effects.)
4. This is hardly news to anyone who reads this place regularly, but I'm rather more than usually invested in particular issues of punctuation and grammar (notably, misplaced apostrophes and quotation marks).
5. I have a very mild spatial dysfunction that manifests itself in difficulty navigating from point to point from one street grid system to another set at irregular angles to it. (Look at a map of the east side of Milwaukee for an example: I'm always driving further than I need to around there because I miscalculate or misremember the best route.) Similarly, certain buildings and intersections can confuse me if they're too self-similar: an intersection where buildings on all four corners are kind of similar, or a building whose hallways look alike and which offers long and short routes from one point to the next (another local example: Mitchell Hall on the UWM campus).
6. My left shoulder is slightly lower than my right one, a consequence of a car accident I was in about fifteen years ago. There's no functional impairment.
Now, on to the victimization portion of our platter, sports fans. I think I will go off to the Comics Curmudgeon site and find some likely suspects with blogs over there...like Nyssa23, Non-Shannon, and yellojkt. And a few other folks - such as the redoubtable Flasshe, and my Milwaukee compatriot Czeltic Girl, and the fabbo head 'cake flipper of the Intellectual House o' Pancakes, Paula.
1.20.2007
just like the time before and the time before that?
One of the things I write about often here is my relation to music and lyrics: more specifically, how and why it is that I seem to pay less attention to lyrics than most people do (to the extent that at times I'll be unaware what a song's lyrics are, even if I've listened to it regularly for years, sometimes even for decades). Anyway, I happened to read William Ruhlmann's All-Music Guide review of the Grateful Dead's "Uncle John's Band" (oh shut up: it's a good song), wherein Ruhlmann says Hunter claimed that "people don't listen to songs the way they read poetry, i.e., in a linear manner, able to appreciate what came before and anticipate what is coming after. Rather, they hear isolated lines. 'Uncle John's Band' is written in isolated lines with repeating patterns and phrases; it does not have a narrative."
That makes a lot of sense to me, and begins to explain, sort of, the way lyrics do or don't work for me. Partly this is a matter of listening circumstance: if you typically listen to music while sitting down and doing nothing else, you can maybe devote the time (and memory) to following a narrative. But I think most people listen to music a bit more distractedly: on the radio while driving, on a CD while reading or eating dinner, on their iPod while jogging, and so on. Even songs whose lyrics are linear narratives might well be put together, in the manner of a film, from fragments assembled out of order, over multiple listenings.
This notion also clarifies something I've possibly misrepresented: it's not that I don't hear lyrics at all (as if the singer's just going la-la-la through the whole song), it's more that I hear bits and pieces, distinctive phrases, rather than the lyric as a whole. Unsurprisingly, then, that I've written in the past that I like lyrics that don't necessarily cohere into a narrative, but rather present a series of distinctive images or allusions that, while not necessarily forming a narrative or coherent image, do tend to align at some level.
Still, it's not as if I'm totally immune to narrative songs. I think songwriters are (whether consciously or not) aware of some of the problems narrative presents (as Hunter notes), and so find ways to bring even casual listeners into the narrative. One way, of course, is to foreground the lyrics directly: place the vocals high in the mix, make the accompanying music relatively simple, so it's clear to the listener that lyrics are the song's focus. Repetition helps too - at least at the level of structure. One interesting strategy is demonstrated by Bob Dylan's "Hurricane." Even though, musically, the song has verses and choruses, many of the chorus sections feature entirely different lyrics. That is, while in most popular music, the recurring chorus actually breaks the narrative (and serves to pay the bills by ID'ing the track, much in the way commercials and their surrounding show-identifying bumpers do on TV), when what sounds like a chorus comes around with different lyrics, that's a signal to the listener that they have to pay more attention to those lyrics than they would in a standard chorus - since in that standard chorus, the words are the same as they were the first time, and therefore the chorus gives the lyric-processing portions of the brain a brief breather.
Another technique (and now I'm stuck coming up with an example) is enjambment: that is, having thoughts or grammatical phrases end not at the end of a musical line but carry over to the next - which is to say, the musical phrase will end, but the singer's thought is clearly unfinished. Again, this signals to the listener that the words aren't just noises the singer's making, but part of a syntactical unit that, in this case, is incomplete. And so: stay tuned for our thrilling conclusion.
Since I've accidentally stumbled upon this televisual analogy as I'm writing this, it strikes me as likely that a good narrative lyric probably breaks down into "acts" just as a good script does. Finding examples is left as an exercise to the reader.
Perhaps relatedly, I was reading at David Byrne's online journal his review of a book called Capturing Sound, which describes the way various recording technologies have affected music. Something similar there: the circumstances of recording (and of listening) affect the object. Certainly much of what we accept without question (quiet vocals at the same level as amplified band, drums distributed across a stereo field, songs that fade out) is an artifact of recording and would strike listeners in any earlier era as extremely odd and, probably, "unmusical" - since no live musicians could possibly produce such music. Incidentally, the denarrativization of music is fairly evident in the course of twentieth-century music (as I commented in an earlier post), and even though popular music has stuck with fairly legible formal structures for longer than most contemporary concert music has, the denarrativization (or renarrativization: narrative but in newer forms) has become more prominent in popular music as well. ("Popular" here refers not to sales but to the music's modes of production, distribution, and consumption.)
That makes a lot of sense to me, and begins to explain, sort of, the way lyrics do or don't work for me. Partly this is a matter of listening circumstance: if you typically listen to music while sitting down and doing nothing else, you can maybe devote the time (and memory) to following a narrative. But I think most people listen to music a bit more distractedly: on the radio while driving, on a CD while reading or eating dinner, on their iPod while jogging, and so on. Even songs whose lyrics are linear narratives might well be put together, in the manner of a film, from fragments assembled out of order, over multiple listenings.
This notion also clarifies something I've possibly misrepresented: it's not that I don't hear lyrics at all (as if the singer's just going la-la-la through the whole song), it's more that I hear bits and pieces, distinctive phrases, rather than the lyric as a whole. Unsurprisingly, then, that I've written in the past that I like lyrics that don't necessarily cohere into a narrative, but rather present a series of distinctive images or allusions that, while not necessarily forming a narrative or coherent image, do tend to align at some level.
Still, it's not as if I'm totally immune to narrative songs. I think songwriters are (whether consciously or not) aware of some of the problems narrative presents (as Hunter notes), and so find ways to bring even casual listeners into the narrative. One way, of course, is to foreground the lyrics directly: place the vocals high in the mix, make the accompanying music relatively simple, so it's clear to the listener that lyrics are the song's focus. Repetition helps too - at least at the level of structure. One interesting strategy is demonstrated by Bob Dylan's "Hurricane." Even though, musically, the song has verses and choruses, many of the chorus sections feature entirely different lyrics. That is, while in most popular music, the recurring chorus actually breaks the narrative (and serves to pay the bills by ID'ing the track, much in the way commercials and their surrounding show-identifying bumpers do on TV), when what sounds like a chorus comes around with different lyrics, that's a signal to the listener that they have to pay more attention to those lyrics than they would in a standard chorus - since in that standard chorus, the words are the same as they were the first time, and therefore the chorus gives the lyric-processing portions of the brain a brief breather.
Another technique (and now I'm stuck coming up with an example) is enjambment: that is, having thoughts or grammatical phrases end not at the end of a musical line but carry over to the next - which is to say, the musical phrase will end, but the singer's thought is clearly unfinished. Again, this signals to the listener that the words aren't just noises the singer's making, but part of a syntactical unit that, in this case, is incomplete. And so: stay tuned for our thrilling conclusion.
Since I've accidentally stumbled upon this televisual analogy as I'm writing this, it strikes me as likely that a good narrative lyric probably breaks down into "acts" just as a good script does. Finding examples is left as an exercise to the reader.
Perhaps relatedly, I was reading at David Byrne's online journal his review of a book called Capturing Sound, which describes the way various recording technologies have affected music. Something similar there: the circumstances of recording (and of listening) affect the object. Certainly much of what we accept without question (quiet vocals at the same level as amplified band, drums distributed across a stereo field, songs that fade out) is an artifact of recording and would strike listeners in any earlier era as extremely odd and, probably, "unmusical" - since no live musicians could possibly produce such music. Incidentally, the denarrativization of music is fairly evident in the course of twentieth-century music (as I commented in an earlier post), and even though popular music has stuck with fairly legible formal structures for longer than most contemporary concert music has, the denarrativization (or renarrativization: narrative but in newer forms) has become more prominent in popular music as well. ("Popular" here refers not to sales but to the music's modes of production, distribution, and consumption.)
1.17.2007
aren't you aware of the gravity?
Andy Partridge, of XTC, seems to do some of his best writing when he's conflicted. I suppose that should be no surprise, since conflict as content is standard in other art forms. Anyway, here are three examples.
Probably his best known (and in some quarters, most reviled) song, "Dear God" isn't quite as simple-minded a statement of non-belief as it's sometimes taken to be: if it were, it would be either purely rhetorical in address or nonsensical (why talk to something you don't believe in?). No, I think the idea is more that whatever "God" might be, the tolerant and merciful aspects of religion seem utterly overthrown by the tyrannical and wrathful aspects. XTC's version of this song is well enough known; here's a cover by Sarah McLachlan from the pretty spiffing tribute album A Testimonial Dinner.
Partridge has released, over the last few years, a whopping eight CDs' worth of home demos (plus a ninth, shorter bonus disc of less aurally-finished versions), all of which were recently compiled into a box set under the title of Fuzzy Warbles. In his often amusing and sometimes insightful notes to the tracks, Partridge notes that at least two songs were directed inspired by his long, tangled relationship with his current wife, Erica Wexler, who was apparently unnervingly persistent in her attentions despite Partridge's being (mostly unhappily) married to someone else at the time. (Happy ending, though: Wexler and Partridge have been together for years now.) The attraction - as you will have guessed from my parentheticals - was mutual, and Wexler was the subject of the jaunty, odd "Seagulls Screaming Kiss Her, Kiss Her," presented here in its demo form (with goofball intro).
Partridge expresses regret over writing the next song, "Another Satellite," since he now reads it as a needlessly harsh rejection. Partridge's discomfort and conflict are our gain, however (we are greedy vampires, we music fans), and so another finely calibrated and desperately direct song strikes home. I've posted the demo - but I also like P. Hux's version from A Testimonial Dinner quite a bit.
Sarah McLachlan "Dear God"
Andy Partridge "Seagulls Screaming Kiss Her, Kiss Her"
Andy Partridge "Another Satellite"
Probably his best known (and in some quarters, most reviled) song, "Dear God" isn't quite as simple-minded a statement of non-belief as it's sometimes taken to be: if it were, it would be either purely rhetorical in address or nonsensical (why talk to something you don't believe in?). No, I think the idea is more that whatever "God" might be, the tolerant and merciful aspects of religion seem utterly overthrown by the tyrannical and wrathful aspects. XTC's version of this song is well enough known; here's a cover by Sarah McLachlan from the pretty spiffing tribute album A Testimonial Dinner.
Partridge has released, over the last few years, a whopping eight CDs' worth of home demos (plus a ninth, shorter bonus disc of less aurally-finished versions), all of which were recently compiled into a box set under the title of Fuzzy Warbles. In his often amusing and sometimes insightful notes to the tracks, Partridge notes that at least two songs were directed inspired by his long, tangled relationship with his current wife, Erica Wexler, who was apparently unnervingly persistent in her attentions despite Partridge's being (mostly unhappily) married to someone else at the time. (Happy ending, though: Wexler and Partridge have been together for years now.) The attraction - as you will have guessed from my parentheticals - was mutual, and Wexler was the subject of the jaunty, odd "Seagulls Screaming Kiss Her, Kiss Her," presented here in its demo form (with goofball intro).
Partridge expresses regret over writing the next song, "Another Satellite," since he now reads it as a needlessly harsh rejection. Partridge's discomfort and conflict are our gain, however (we are greedy vampires, we music fans), and so another finely calibrated and desperately direct song strikes home. I've posted the demo - but I also like P. Hux's version from A Testimonial Dinner quite a bit.
Sarah McLachlan "Dear God"
Andy Partridge "Seagulls Screaming Kiss Her, Kiss Her"
Andy Partridge "Another Satellite"
1.15.2007
I forgot to ask whether any of them knew Kevin Bacon
There's an old joke, goes something like, a small-town guy has a friend, John, who moved to New York City some years ago. At some sort of event where people from far-flung places might meet - let's say, his daughter's wedding - he meets another man who lives in New York City. "New York City?" he says, "Do you know John?"
The Milwaukee metro area population is about 1.75 million. The Los Angeles metro area population is about 13 million. Last week, we were visiting our friends Bob and Susan in Lancaster, California, whom we'd met when both were graduate students in the English department at UW-Milwaukee at the same time I was doing my graduate work. Amusingly, at least two of Susan's colleagues at the school where she now teaches have Milwaukee connections. We'd met one before, and on this trip we met the other, a woman named Angela who'd grown up in Milwaukee. In talking with Angela, we discovered that we had some acquaintances in common: a former colleague (and former student, in fact) of mine, named Brian, and a close friend of his, Michael, who's a Brady cousin of mine. (This is not a technical term of relation, but I don't know if there is one to designate children by previous marriage of a woman who married my uncle.)
That was coincidental enough (as was the fact that Angela attended the same high school as two other friends of mine, although a few years later), but in talking with Angela's husband (also named Brian), I found out he worked doing licensing and rights for a major studio. Now it so happens that prior to meeting Angela and Brian, I'd met in person only one other person who lives in the L.A. basin, a guy named Rex, who happens to work for the same studio, although in a different department entirely. We weren't able to get together with Rex on this trip, but I e-mailed him a day or so after we got together with Angela and Brian, and it occurred to me to ask if he happened to know Brian who worked with licensing and rights.
He did. As a matter of fact, he wrote, he had just talked with Brian the day before.
So, basically, this is like the guy in the joke being told, "John? Oh yeah - of course I know John!" Pretty steep odds, I'd say...not only that Angela and I had acquintances in common but that her husband and the only other guy I know in L.A. would know each other!
The Milwaukee metro area population is about 1.75 million. The Los Angeles metro area population is about 13 million. Last week, we were visiting our friends Bob and Susan in Lancaster, California, whom we'd met when both were graduate students in the English department at UW-Milwaukee at the same time I was doing my graduate work. Amusingly, at least two of Susan's colleagues at the school where she now teaches have Milwaukee connections. We'd met one before, and on this trip we met the other, a woman named Angela who'd grown up in Milwaukee. In talking with Angela, we discovered that we had some acquaintances in common: a former colleague (and former student, in fact) of mine, named Brian, and a close friend of his, Michael, who's a Brady cousin of mine. (This is not a technical term of relation, but I don't know if there is one to designate children by previous marriage of a woman who married my uncle.)
That was coincidental enough (as was the fact that Angela attended the same high school as two other friends of mine, although a few years later), but in talking with Angela's husband (also named Brian), I found out he worked doing licensing and rights for a major studio. Now it so happens that prior to meeting Angela and Brian, I'd met in person only one other person who lives in the L.A. basin, a guy named Rex, who happens to work for the same studio, although in a different department entirely. We weren't able to get together with Rex on this trip, but I e-mailed him a day or so after we got together with Angela and Brian, and it occurred to me to ask if he happened to know Brian who worked with licensing and rights.
He did. As a matter of fact, he wrote, he had just talked with Brian the day before.
So, basically, this is like the guy in the joke being told, "John? Oh yeah - of course I know John!" Pretty steep odds, I'd say...not only that Angela and I had acquintances in common but that her husband and the only other guy I know in L.A. would know each other!
1.06.2007
proposed musical commission
We went to a concert tonight (Present Music), and I hate to grumble the same old grumble, but my new theory is that, just as cats know which people in the room dislike cats (and instinctively gravitate toward those people), certain people with hitherto-undiagnosed allergies to certain musical sounds (primarily quieter ones) are attracted to those very same musical sounds. I'm not sure what else would explain the outbursts of coughing, wheezing, and crumpling of cough-suppressant wrappers that invariably break out at such concerts. Those folks at least have the excuse that a cough is involuntary. Talking, however, is not: shortly after shushing (politely) the chatting couple in front of us - who were apparently under the impression that the musicians were just a video projection - the female of the party decided that a quiet moment during a string trio was the perfect time to file her nails. Added a peculiar, scritching percussive sound to the piece. Me, I was thinking of that Elvis Costello line about the filing of nails...as a reminder that lots of weight would make it harder for the folks dragging the lake to find the body.
I'm thinking some composer should score a piece for coughing, throat-clearing, chair-shifting, program-rustling, purse-rummaging, candy-unwrapping, and indistinct mumbling and whispering. Better yet, it could be an audience participation piece! Get it out of their systems, maybe.
PS: We'll be on vacation for a week, so it's fairly unlikely I'll be updating this until then.
I'm thinking some composer should score a piece for coughing, throat-clearing, chair-shifting, program-rustling, purse-rummaging, candy-unwrapping, and indistinct mumbling and whispering. Better yet, it could be an audience participation piece! Get it out of their systems, maybe.
PS: We'll be on vacation for a week, so it's fairly unlikely I'll be updating this until then.
1.03.2007
at least they're not Comic Sans
As something of a font geek, I admit to a slight chuckle over today's Shoe comic strip...(clicky to embiggen):
I mean, as some folks over at the renowned Comics Curmudgeon site have pointed out, it's kind of a lame set-up - but hey, it's a font joke. Just exactly how many good set-ups for font jokes are there?
I mean, as some folks over at the renowned Comics Curmudgeon site have pointed out, it's kind of a lame set-up - but hey, it's a font joke. Just exactly how many good set-ups for font jokes are there?
1.02.2007
I ran into a somewhat intriguing article by Pierre Ruhe (who I presume is a classical music critic) on various attempts by popular musicians to write in "classical" styles. Ruhe claims that the pieces he thinks have failed (Paul McCartney's, Billy Joel's, and Elvis Costello's) have done so because their composers have been unable to infuse their individuality into their classical attempts. He praises the work of Frank Zappa, Jonny Greenwood (of Radiohead), and Björk in successfully melding their distinctive musical personalities into classical (or, at any rate, non– pop-oriented) compositions. (I'm going to disagree on Ruhe's claim that these musicians write "classical" music for prestige - first, because anyone who'd still be snooting McCartney's obvious skills and accomplishment is unlikely to grant him prestige just because suddenly there's a bassoon involved, and second because as dead as old-school classical structure is, old-school classical "prestige" is even deader.)
But what is this "personality"? It's a notoriously fleeting and hard-to-define quality, certainly - but I think with these examples, at least, there's an obvious aspect of the composers' popular work that might predict how well other popular musicians might do in their attempts to broaden their musical palettes. The failed composers are all, in their "day jobs," best known as songwriters. Their tools are lyrics, melody, and effective harmonic settings for those melodies. The more successful composers (according to Ruhe, at least) are not primarily songwriters; in fact, their music (with the possible exception of Zappa) is better known for its textural qualities than its tunefulness. That's not to say those composers can't write songs, when they try to (Radiohead is the most successful in that realm of the three - and of course Greenwood isn't that band's only writer), but that doing so doesn't seem to be their primary musical interest. But it's certainly true that it's far easier to imagine the Costello's, McCartney's, or Joel's songs performed by one singer with a guitar than to imagine Zappa's or Björk's songs done that way. The songs' structure is more important than their externals (which can be changed like clothing), whereas in a sense the second group of musicians' music is exoskeletal: held together and articulated by the sounds themselves on the surface, rather than an abstract, inaudible structure.
Given that another aspect of Ruhe's complaint is that too often, popular musicians writing "serious" music tend to ignore anything composed in the past seventy-five years or so, that suggests another factor: the songwriters are used to working in a particular structure (that of the popular song). Classical music of the last seventy-five years rarely sticks to such traditional structures (such as sonata form, which is fairly close to that of popular song), and so these songwriters either flail about extending pretty tunes with no real sense of direction or variation, or fall back on outmoded styles and models and sound, instead, utterly clueless to an audience familiar with contemporary classical composition.
The texturalists, on the other hand, are in some cases already used to developing structure in a non-standard format, perhaps from within that sonic variety or (like Zappa) creating extended pieces in essentially episodic form but which avoid boredom through constant variety of texture, including orchestration, rhythm, density, etc. (In looking for alternate versions of Ruhe's article - since it didn't originate at the Journal Sentinel link I've used - I found that elsewhere he praises Autechre's work - which, again, makes sense given that band's interest in exploring sound rather than song.)
I suspect that songwriters would be more successful if, rather than trying to write symphonies, oratorios, or other long-form works, they confined at least their early efforts in the genre to smaller forms, since such forms would play to their existing strengths.
But what is this "personality"? It's a notoriously fleeting and hard-to-define quality, certainly - but I think with these examples, at least, there's an obvious aspect of the composers' popular work that might predict how well other popular musicians might do in their attempts to broaden their musical palettes. The failed composers are all, in their "day jobs," best known as songwriters. Their tools are lyrics, melody, and effective harmonic settings for those melodies. The more successful composers (according to Ruhe, at least) are not primarily songwriters; in fact, their music (with the possible exception of Zappa) is better known for its textural qualities than its tunefulness. That's not to say those composers can't write songs, when they try to (Radiohead is the most successful in that realm of the three - and of course Greenwood isn't that band's only writer), but that doing so doesn't seem to be their primary musical interest. But it's certainly true that it's far easier to imagine the Costello's, McCartney's, or Joel's songs performed by one singer with a guitar than to imagine Zappa's or Björk's songs done that way. The songs' structure is more important than their externals (which can be changed like clothing), whereas in a sense the second group of musicians' music is exoskeletal: held together and articulated by the sounds themselves on the surface, rather than an abstract, inaudible structure.
Given that another aspect of Ruhe's complaint is that too often, popular musicians writing "serious" music tend to ignore anything composed in the past seventy-five years or so, that suggests another factor: the songwriters are used to working in a particular structure (that of the popular song). Classical music of the last seventy-five years rarely sticks to such traditional structures (such as sonata form, which is fairly close to that of popular song), and so these songwriters either flail about extending pretty tunes with no real sense of direction or variation, or fall back on outmoded styles and models and sound, instead, utterly clueless to an audience familiar with contemporary classical composition.
The texturalists, on the other hand, are in some cases already used to developing structure in a non-standard format, perhaps from within that sonic variety or (like Zappa) creating extended pieces in essentially episodic form but which avoid boredom through constant variety of texture, including orchestration, rhythm, density, etc. (In looking for alternate versions of Ruhe's article - since it didn't originate at the Journal Sentinel link I've used - I found that elsewhere he praises Autechre's work - which, again, makes sense given that band's interest in exploring sound rather than song.)
I suspect that songwriters would be more successful if, rather than trying to write symphonies, oratorios, or other long-form works, they confined at least their early efforts in the genre to smaller forms, since such forms would play to their existing strengths.
1.01.2007
An imaginary exercise to begin the year
Let's say you've bought a particular CD. Let's say you like the band (which might be referred to as The Last Monthists) and the album (which might be referred to as An Avian Marriage), and you want to buy all of the band's songs. Let's say there's one song by the band that's available only in a relatively low-resolution mp3 and only if you re-buy the entire CD you already bought, and another available only in a limited edition version of the CD apparently sold only at a now-defunct chain of stores.
Let's say you download those tracks here instead and donate the money you would have spent on the redundant, low-resolution digital album to a charity the band's songwriter has been known to favor.
Let's say you download those tracks here instead and donate the money you would have spent on the redundant, low-resolution digital album to a charity the band's songwriter has been known to favor.
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