These videos have been doing the rounds, but I feel obliged to link to them because of my obsession with reworking Schoenberg’s Opus 11. An exemplar of how the internet wastes your time, Cory Arcangel has produced a performance of Schoenberg’s Three Piano Pieces on his website. The angle? It’s made up entirely of snippets of YouTube videos of cats on piano keyboards.
It’s not quite an infinite number of monkeys, but…
first I downloaded every video of a cat playing piano I could find on Youtube. I ended up with about 170 videos. Then I extracted the audio from each, pasted these files end to end, and then pasted this huge file onto the end of an audio file of Glenn Gould playing op11. I loaded this file into Comparisonics. Comparisonics, a strange free program I found while surfing one night…
Full details, and the videos, on his website.
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The Composer and His Audience
Friday 31 July 2009
I was just listening to an old radio broadcast commemorating the death of Harry Partch in 1974, and learned that he shared a particular trait with another eccentric composer, Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji. Sorabji lived in a castle in Dorset, with a sign on the gate reading:
Visitors Unwelcome.
Roman Catholic Nuns in Full Habit May Enter Without An Appointment.
Partch kept an equal yet opposite sign on his front door:
Occupant is a Heathen Chinee. Missionaries at this door will face the Dowager Empress and another Boxer Rebellion. Please do not disturb 11.00 am to 2.00 pm. Missionaries – never.
Filed under: Music by Ben.H
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He’s got a million of them
Tuesday 28 July 2009
Among the memorials and tributes to Merce Cunningham, I’ve seen yet another pithy quote from Morton Feldman which I didn’t know about before. I don’t know where this one comes from, but it’s in a description of the unusual way Cunningham often worked with artists and composers he knew well.
His works may have a score, but it’s made separately from the choreography; the same can go for the set. Elements meant to work together in performance are created independently by a cohort of trusted collaborators. Composer Morton Feldman explained the process like this: “Suppose your daughter is getting married and her wedding dress won’t be ready until the morning of the wedding, but it’s by Dior.”
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Merce Cunningham
Monday 27 July 2009
There’s a rumor Merce’ll stop. Ten years ago, London critic said he was too old. He himself says he’s just getting a running start. Annalie Newman says he’s like wine: he improves with age.
— John Cage, “Where Are We Eating? and What Are We Eating? (Thirty-eight Variations on a Theme by Alison Knowles)”, 1975.
If I’m asked to name the greatest gigs I’ve been to, the first one that comes to mind is the performance of Merce Cunningham’s Ocean at the Roundhouse in 2006. Now I’m kicking myself for not going out of my way to see more of Cunningham’s choreography – it’s highly unlikely the time it would have taken was better spent.
Merce Cunningham died yesterday at the age of ninety. As a music snob I’ve always thought of him first as John Cage’s partner, but even then neither Cage’s life or work can be considered independently of Cunningham’s. It seems like there are so few artists of their kind these days, who are so truly fearless and adventurous, and less interested in grandstanding over how “provocative” and “radical” they claim themselves to be.
Just last month Cunningham announced his plans to preserve the legacy of his dance company and his work. Hopefully his death did not come too soon for these plans to be carried out.
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Stockhausen: The Cosmic Conspiracy
Friday 24 July 2009
What about my symphony No. 3? I forgot to write…simple, like that–therefore recently, I commissioned Ken Friedman to write my Symphony No. 3.
— Nam June Paik, “My Ten Symphonies” in Source: Music of the Avant Garde, Number 11, 1973/74.
___________
My BELOW-LEFT Symphony was here.
Someone must have torn it off.
Now will no one ever hear it?
Stockhausen
March 15th 2003
___________
Someone must have torn it off.
Now will no one ever hear it?
Stockhausen
March 15th 2003
___________
Sigmar Polke, “Higher beings ordered: paint the right upper corner black!”, 1969.
___________
For beings from the planets of the Sirius system, “everything is music, or the art of co-ordination and harmony of vibrations. . . . The art is very highly developed there, and every composition on Sirius is related to the rhythms of nature . . . the seasons, the rhythms of the stars.”
— Karlheinz Stockhausen, Towards a Cosmic Music, 1989.
Other snippets of vitally important information then came to me through a couple of revelatory dreams. Crazy dreams, from which it emerged that not only did I come from Sirius itself, but that, in fact, I completed my musical education there.
— Karlheinz Stockhausen, in Mya Tannenbaum, Conversations with Stockhausen, 1987.
___________
Ken Friedman gladly wrote Nam June Paik’s 3rd Symphony, but reported that the score was lost at the rehearsal in Saugus, during the San Fernando earthquake of 1971. The earthquake itself constituted the finale of the piece.
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The Strange Case of Dr. Chicago
Thursday 23 July 2009
One thing I forgot I wanted to talk about when mentioning Alvin Lucier last month was his starring role in George Manupelli’s Dr. Chicago trilogy*. I first heard about these films only last year, over at Renewable Music, where Daniel Wolf suggests that Lucier is the composer with the most prominent film career.
(Possible runner up, Erik Satie in Entr’acte. John Cage makes a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it appearance in Maya Deren’s At Land, and almost had a part in La Dolce Vita, but didn’t.)
The thing that reminded me was Kyle Gann has just posted about these films, and mentions that Robert Ashley made the soundtracks for them. That’s something else I didn’t know before but do now.
I’ve only seen short excerpts from each film, on YouTube and Manupelli’s website. They look like a mixture of cinéma vérité, awkward improvisation, and flights of deadpan absurdity. A lot of that last element comes from Lucier’s portrayal of the nefarious Dr. Chicago as he flees with his meagre entourage across the United States into Mexico. His Chicago combines the feckless insouciance of Nick Riviera with the calculating amorality of Burroughs’ Dr. Benway deprived of a budget.
* “There was also a fourth film, Dr. Chicago Goes to Sweden, but Manupelli got pissed off at a film festival in Toronto and drove around town with the only copy of the film unreeling out the window of his car.”
Filed under: Film, Music by Ben.H
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When Pianos Ruled The World
Thursday 16 July 2009
Now that I’m the proud custodian of a piano, I’m starting to notice more pianophernalia in my neighbourhood. Down the street a way is this fine old advertisement for Boyd Pianos, one of many defunct piano companies, from the days when piano merchants hawked their wares on walls and billboards.
The Ghost Signs blog has a more thorough analysis of this rather unusual sign, and comments:
In addition to their main piano business Boyd also had a sideline in theatre box office ticket sales. Perhaps this relates in some way to them supplying pianos to theatres and this being a natural bolt on service they could offer to the theatres and the public?
When I saw the phrase “Box office for all theatres”, I thought it was mid-century adspeak meaning that theatre owners could pack in the punters if they have a piano; but maybe that turn of phrase was too American to make sense to the English.
There’s another, less elaborate wall advertisement for a piano store in Willesden Green. This became the inspiration for my composition St Paul’s Pianos.
Filed under: Music by Ben.H
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All Kinds of Awesome: Ashley, Maxfield, Riley, and Young
Tuesday 14 July 2009
I’ve probably said it before somewhere, but the Other Minds Archive is an invaluable treasure trove of recordings of the musical avant-garde for the past 50 years or so; and it keeps on getting better. I was stoked when I checked the updates today to find they’ve just uploaded:
- Terry Riley performing his Two Piano Pieces (1958-59) – this is Riley before he became the hippieish minimalist of In C, A Rainbow in Curved Air etc.
- Three pieces by Richard Maxfield: Amazing Grace (1960), Structures for 10 wind instruments (1951), and Piano Sonata No.2 (1949). Maxfield was a brilliant composer who has fallen into obscurity since his early death. Best known for his electronic music, his body of work for conventional instruments has gone largely unheard.
- Early music by Robert Ashley: The Fourth of July (1960) and Heat (1961) for tape, and the piano sonata Christopher Columbus crosses to the New World in the Niña, the Pinta and the Santa Maria using only dead reckoning and a crude astrolabe (1959-61). Ashley’s reputation rests on his extraordinary series of operas begun in the late 1960s, so this is a rare glimpse into his early work.
- La Monte Young’s B Flat Dorian Blues (1963) – a chunk of Young playing sopranino sax, backed by Tony Conrad, John Cale, Angus MacLise, and Marian Zazeela. This program also includes one half each of the Black Record and Dream House albums. Somewhere in the Archive is a radio broadcast of the rest of the Black Record.
Young’s music is notoriously hard to find, and apart from Amazing Grace I don’t think any of the pieces by the other composers has been made available anywhere before. So yeah, I’m stoked.
More details about these recordings, and access to other materials, can be found at radiOM.org.
Filed under: Music by Ben.H
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Upside of Mediocrity
Saturday 11 July 2009
For those of you who asked if I was alright after Wednesday’s post: much better now, thanks. To summarise: the idea for a piece I was working on proved to be impossible. From working on that first idea a second, different but related idea for a piece came to mind. Work on this second idea progressed and expanded until it became thoroughly confused and unworkable.
In the last few days I’ve figured out an alternative way of going about realising the first idea, and have nearly finished it. Then I have the second idea to go back to. I’m trying to remember who said that every good idea is really three ideas – I usually think of it as the other way round, where I need at least three ideas put together to make one good idea. The last few days seem to have demonstrated a perverse corollary, that any half-assed idea can be broken down into multiple half-assed ideas.
Anyway, England are 2 wickets down and 219 runs behind Australia going into the last day at Cardiff, so I’d be feeling pretty good in any case.
Filed under: Music by Ben.H
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Composing With The Radio On
Wednesday 8 July 2009
I’m beginning to doubt whether the new way of making music (computers, synthesisers, MIDI sequencers giving instant feedback of what you’ve just done) is such a great idea after all. Hearing every little thing go wrong, time and time again, has the effect of grinding down your confidence and your will to finish the thing you’re working on. There’s too much room for experimentation, tempting you to drift away from your original thoughts, leaving you lost in a maze of dead ends.
Perhaps it is much better to write and finish a piece in blissful ignorance and only then, upon hearing the first rehearsal, realise how badly it stinks. At least then you could identify and fix only what is broken, to justify all your efforts so far.
I try to have an idea of what I want to achieve before I begin, but lately I’m finding that these ideas are neither solid nor clear enough before I start working, and I lose my way.
Also, The Ashes have started so I can’t give anything else my undivided attention.
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Three quotes from Harry Halbreich’s sleeve notes for the album Iannis Xenakis: Chamber Music 1955-1990:
Kottos for cello (1977)
Later, the music returns to extremely high registers, the toccata proceeds with double stops, but after a short recall of the opening sounds, the piece unexpectedly ends by dissolving into gossamer glissandi in the highest register.
Embellie for viola (1981)
And the work ends in the same manner, slipping away to the extreme high glissando harmonics on the edge of audibility.
Tetras for string quartet (1983)
The eighth section, a metrically complex tutti, leads to the ninth, which serves as a coda and which, after a display of strength in tremolos, dies away in a surprising manner with pianissimo glissandi.
Filed under: Journalism, Music by Ben.H
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AudioMulch 2.0 Released
Wednesday 1 July 2009
AudioMulch, a program I’ve used in a number of my compositions, live gigs, and installations, has now been upgraded to version 2. I’m pretty excited about this, particularly because the revisions to the interface and work flow are expected to make future upgrades and additional features quicker and easier. The program is intended for novices as well as specialists. Info and 60-day demo here.
Filed under: Music by Ben.H
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Housekeeping in The Listening Room
Wednesday 1 July 2009
As mentioned before, all 12 pieces from Real Characters and False Analogues can now be heard in The Listening Room. However, I’ve been having trouble with some of the mp3s: Redundens 4 and all of the Stained Melodies come out distorted when I try to play them.
I’m figuring out how to fix this, but in the meantime if you have the same trouble then try the player on my NetNewMusic page.
Filed under: Music, Self-promotion by Ben.H
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This Is The New Music! Real Characters and False Analogues
Monday 29 June 2009
12 mp3s for download or streaming.
John Wilkins’ An Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language, published in 1668, proposed the existence of a universal language, written and spoken, which could communicate experience without mediation. It was believed this language could reconstruct the order of nature that God had revealed to Adam, before confounding man’s language at Babel.
Many people have claimed that music is the true universal language. (The first modern artificial language was Solresol, which can be transmitted musically as well as verbally.) Unforunately, this particular species of musical fundamentalist is most likely to insist that some types of music are more natural than others*, when in reality all music is, essentially, as arbitrary as any language.
Real Characters and False Analogues is a set of twelve pieces for microtonal piano I wrote in 2004, then revised extensively in 2009. It is a sequel to Stained Melodies, adapting the compositional premise of the earlier work, that of simultaneously performing isolated pitches from different, unrelated pieces of music. Real Characters develops this idea by imposing a series of transformations to the sources’ rhythm, tempo, dynamics and pitch, producing a greater variety of harmonies and textures.
In keeping with the ultimately arbitrary nature of supposedly universal languages, all compositional choices were governed by a set of chance operations; and although the piano is tuned to a special 22-note scale, only 15 notes are decided by chance to appear in any given piece. Each of the twelve pieces is named after one of the myriad artificial languages invented over the past century.
The entire set, along with detailed composition notes, can be downloaded from its page on the music website, or heard in streaming audio at The Listening Room.
* According to Nicolas Slonimsky, “The American pedagogue Percy Goetschius used to play the C major scale for his students and ask them a rhetorical question. ‘Who invented this scale?’ and answer it himself. ‘God!’ Then he would play the whole-tone scale and ask again, ‘Who invented this scale?’ And he would announce disdainfully, ‘Monsieur Debussy!'”
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Everybody’s I Ching
Friday 26 June 2009
Forget random.org; if you want true chance operations à la John Cage, for years the go-to source has been ic, the little DOS program written by Cage’s assistant Andrew Culver. It imitates the I Ching‘s method of producing random numbers without all the original’s tedious poetry and oracular pontification.
Now that command-line programs are a dying breed for the general computer user, it’s great to see that Culver is keeping the program alive by putting a beta of a new, user-friendly, web-based ic on his site. If it was good enough for Cage…
