Tag: Music

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).

Alvin Lucier – I Am Sitting in a Room

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This semester, I have been taking a class on Minimalist music. I will be posting occasionally on what I hear as I work through a recording syllabus. They will be in the category Minimalism.

“I Am Sitting in a Room” (1969) has a simple premise at heart. A man records a short phrase on a tape machine. He takes it into an empty room, then runs the tape, over-dubbing the tape with the loop echoing around the room, then repeats for 40 minutes.

This process, this set of actions is simple, yet it yields extremely interesting and, yes, beautiful music. As the loop repeats and builds upon itself, the words become less distinct. Consonants become muddled, then disappear altogether. The reflections off the walls break the contrast of the clear tones produced by speech, they become dull and blend together. High freqency tones die out, and these mellow, deep tones (not unlike a Rhodes keyboard) become the “song.”

I started listening to this piece with the expectation that I would not like it. I am generally wary of music, especially avant-garde music, that is dependent on a single technological process to make it distinctive, but I was blown away by the distinctly musical patterns and tones that emerged from the repetition. It was also the case that every time I thought that I could skip the rest of the recording, I heard a new, unpredicted, pattern.

These patterns became important in minimalist music. The repetition we usually associate with the style likely came from other inspirations, however when the style first began to emerge, there were many composers experimenting with tape loops and phasing, most notably Steve Reich with Come Out (1966) and Piano Phase (1967). This piece can also be considered in the context of other composers that were investigating the potential of computers and recording technology to make music, such as Terry Riley and Karlheinz Stockhausen.

Alvin Lucier (1932-) is an American composer and recordist. His music explores the possibilities found in psycho-acoustics, sound installations, and electromagnetically created sound.


Kitka

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Skip to 1:20

I was driving on the highway back home, and flipped on the radio. I start hearing these pleasant, but otherworldly harmonies coming from the radio. I could tell that it was women singing, but I really had no point of reference. It didn’t sound like any Western music I knew, but it didn’t sound like anything else either.

It turns out that I was listening to All Things Considered interviewing the members of Kitka, a female vocal ensemble based in the Bay Area that sing and arrange music in Eastern European folk styles. I am interested in looking further at what that means musically, but I thought I’d share the videos that they have on Youtube.

Great Voices

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Above: “Le Soleil et La Lune” by Charles Trenet

In 2010, NPR is going to do a recurring series about the world’s best vocalists. Of couse, that’s a highly subjective and ultimately crazy goal, but in the time being, they’ve got an interactive tool to help them pare the list down with biography, photos, and audio samples of 150 candidate vocalists. It’s been fun for me to play with and find new people to listen to, such as Charles Trenet (French pop) above and Chavela Vargas below (Mexican ranchera). Go play with it!

Below: “La Llorona” by Chavela Vargas