Category: Music

Music to Slit Your Wrists To

Matthew EilarLeave a comment

In high school, I started and maintained a playlist called “Music to Slit Your Wrists To.” I wasn’t considering suicide, or even begging for attention (actually, the name came from a throwaway line from Uptown Girls), I just felt like it was the best way to describe the way that I heard the music. There wasn’t any rhyme, reason, or style associated with these choices. They ranged from the sacred, Bach’s “Sheep May Safely Graze” from BWV 208 (The “Hunting” Cantata, to the profane, Geto Boy’s “Damn, it Feels Good to be a Gangsta;” from the intense, Xiu Xiu’s “I Luv the Valley OH!” to the chill, Weekend Player’s “Jericho.” The only commonality between these songs were the emotional and physiological arousal they caused in me, and the fact that it was plausible that these songs could be the last thing played before somebody killed themselves.

This is a not-so-very-good clip of Music for 18 Musicians. The section I am talking about below starts at about 1:22.

I’ve been thinking a lot about that arousal. It’s been coming back with my recent obsession with Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians. Although I love the whole work, sections I and VI have a repeating figure in the strings that almost make me catatonic. To me, it feels like an arrival into a state of being or place. It’s different from the adrenaline rush I get when I perform, or when I hear live music or high energy pump up music. I think that this is why most of the songs on my playlist have fairly moderate tempi and dynamic range. It’s not a head rush. It’s more like sinking into a place that’s both vast and weirdly sacred. This isn’t making a whole lot of sense because I’m describing a subjective experience, but these are the words that are coming to mind.

I know this video has been up here before, but I shit you not, this song makes me question my own existence.

Percussion deux

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I didn’t want to put this tangent in the other post, but as I was writing it, I was thinking, “Compared to being a rock drummer (or better yet, jazz), it really sucks to be a classical percussionist.” The reason that there are a ton of classical orchestral pieces that don’t have them is that they’re not really necessary in an orchestra. The conductor establishes the beat and everything is notated. Compared to drumming for anything else, it’s a really boring job.

But then I thought about some of these new pieces, especially minimalist pieces, that have extremely complex patterns. They often have some kind of pulse, from the pulses of In C and Music for 18 Musicians to the woodblock in John Adams’ Short Ride in a Fast Machine. Maybe as composers explore more complex (and fast) beat patterns, there will be more of a rôle for the classical percussionist.

Classical Percussion

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There’s a story up on the Wall Street Journal about the recent(ish) trend in classical concert percussion pieces, including Philip Glass’ Concerto Fantasy for Two Timpanists and Tan Dun’s Concerto for Water Percussion. It mostly covers the growing corps of soloists and the number of new music composers that are growing the repertoire, but it also asks the question of why it is so popular.

And yet the extramusical elements may be the reason percussion music is so popular with audiences, and often draws crowds that are substantially younger than average. Sometimes it bridges the divide between classical music and rock: Mr. Yamashta remains an icon in alternative rock circles; a percussion concerto by Stewart Copeland, the former drummer of The Police, will be given its premiere next year by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. Perhaps most intriguing is the fact that percussion music is in such demand despite its association with contemporary music—usually considered toxic for ticket sales.

“I think that concert presenters still scratch their heads and don’t understand why this phenomenon is occurring,” says Mr. Haas. “They don’t want to recognize the fact that drums, which not so long ago were considered to not be a concert instrument, have now taken over as the predominant attraction of new audiences.

I think I have an answer to this.

In a sense, rhythm is the last holdout of variety through geographic isolation. Throughout the history of Western classical music it has been possible to track rhythms (especially in dances) from their origin in folk and foreign traditions and the way that they spread around the continent. For example, the sarabande came to Spain from Central America in the middle of the 16th century, then became a staple of French dance suites a century later after it had been banned in Spain due its “obscenity.” With the internet, greater interest in world music, and a globalization fueled interest in cultural pluralism, Western music audiences of the 20th century have the ability to hear the music of any culture on earth.

It was a rhythmic century. Rock and Roll. Funk. Disco. Hip Hop. Jazz. And I think audience interest in percussion oriented pieces reflects a desire to hear concert music that is of its time. In other words, to have music written in the 21st century that ignores the experiments and sounds of percussion specialists like Aphex Twin, or the syncopation and rhythmic variety of a master MC is ignoring the sounds of their time.

There have been periods in music history characterized by growth in complexity of counterpoint, or changes in instrument building and orchestration, or innovations in form. I think this century is going to see a lot of experimentation in the rhythmic content of concert music.

End of the decade lists

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I don’t think I’ll have one… I’ve been all over the map, and really don’t have anything original to contribute (then again, it is the internet…). But one thing that’s been intriguing me is the motivations behind those lists. I’m not sure that I completely agree with Umberto Eco’s idea that lists are the origin of culture, but I think there is something there.

In some ways, through these end of decade lists (and 10 years ago with the end of the century/millenium lists) establish the official history of critical consensus for that year. If I look at Pitchfork’s 20 best albums of 2004, I would get a pretty good idea of what they were talking about that year, and what contemporary records were compared to.

On the other hand, these kind of canons are bad at predicting long term recognition. For example, take a look at a list of Best Picture winners and see how that lines up with the history of US cinema. And so everybody wants to be the person that makes not only the right call now, but the correct call in the eyes of history.

Another thing that I’ve been wondering is how much these lists restrict our listening choices. For example, Pitchfork a couple of years ago did a list of the best songs of the 60’s. They might have a better handle on what those songs were than somebody writing in 1969 because it’s impossible to accurately predict influence. Retrospectives have that advantage. On the other hand, these canons build upon themselves, and history is littered with musicians who have gone out of print or been all but forgotten because, at times completely irrespective of their music or craft, they did not fit in with the narratives of their eras (or genres).