Why, then, does the ego get in the way of its own longing for expression? On the one hand, it is inherently egotistical—presumptuous, even—to get up onstage and demand that others listen to what you have to say. But at the same time, performing requires humility: a willingness to risk being humiliated or misunderstood, and to lay yourself bare so you can try to say what you mean (and what you think the composer meant). That is what is at stake in performance: nothing more or less than the longing for self-expression, to connect with others and be heard by them.Hodges, Natalie. Uncommon Measure: A Journey through Music, Performance, and the Science of Time. Bellevue Literary Press, 2022.
Labels: music, Natalie Hodges
The Latvian composer Ēriks Ešenvalds was in St. Louis this weekend for the premiere of a new choral work with the St. Louis Chamber Chorus. On Friday afternoon, he gave an interview to the public radio station here.
And at that time, Whitney Houston was very popular singer. You know, she still is one of my top, top singers because there is such a freedom in her voice. … We couldn't buy her sheet music in Soviet Union, but we did saw her on TV, we heard her on radio and audio cassette. So, so main subject in during music school was piano playing. And I was very good in the piano. So I just learned to play her songs by listening. And I was surprised to figure out that her songs consisted of playing chords – six, seven different chords. … Those beautiful songs were created just with simple chords. And that was like the next step.… But that was the beginning at age 10, 11, thanks to Whitney Houston.
Listen: the Whitney Houston portion comes at about 13 minutes in.
Labels: Ešenvalds, music, St. Louis, Whitney Houston
from Sonic Meditations (1974)
Native
Take a walk at night. Walk so silently that the bottoms of your feet become ears.
“Music was invented in heaven, which resounds with the song of the Heavenly Hosts; our singing is nought but an echo, an imitation of the songs the angels sing.”John Chrysostom (c.349-407 AD)
Labels: angels, church music, John Chyrsostom, music
Enjoy this funny song "So you want to go back to Egypt" with many manna references just in time for Proper 20A (track 1). The Evangelical Christian singer-songwriter is an interesting character: Keith Green, who died in a plane crash at only age 28.
(Thanks to Sue E. for the tip!)
Labels: Exodus, Hebrew Bible, music, Proper 20A (track 1)
I've been confronted this week with my deep poverty of imagination and understanding on the concept of "power" as it relates to art. Part of my deep frustration with the powerlessness of which I wrote a few days ago is that I don't rightly know what the concept means as related to art, music, church music, the church itself, etc.
“You can kill people with sound.”
And so it seems to us at the blog at Sinden.org that the time is right hold a colloquium on the questions of power and art, and explore how these concepts relate to music within the liturgy of the church.
The ever helpful Maria Popova gets us started on the value of arts
This is the power of art: The power to transcend our own self-interest, our solipsistic zoom-lens on life, and relate to the world and each other with more integrity, more curiosity, more wholeheartedness.
Wholeheartedness leads to thoughts of Brené Brown, and (artistic) vulnerability of which I expect we will have plenty to say later. Note that the title of her TED talk uses the P word: The Power of Vulnerability
Which leads us to think maybe the power of art as found in its vulnerability could really be thought of as "weakness". I'd love to unpack the paradox here, and I may later reach for a title by theologian Marva Dawn, Joy in our Weakness.
There are moments on this blog when "power", as it is connected to art, music, and the church, has already surfaced.
Here are a few:
“If we consider what sort of music we should want to hear on entering a church we should surely, in describing our ideal, say first of all that it must be something different from what is heard elsewhere; that it should be a sacred music devoted to its purpose, a music whose peace should still passion; whose dignity should strengthen our faith; whose unquestioned beauty should find a home in our hearts to cheer us in life and death. What a powerful good such music would have”.
“You can kill people with sound.”
It makes you appreciate the tremendous power of particularity. If your identity is formed by hard boundaries, if you come from a specific place, if you embody a distinct musical tradition, if your concerns are expressed through a specific paracosm, you are going to have more depth and definition than you are if you grew up in the far-flung networks of pluralism and eclecticism, surfing from one spot to the next, sampling one style then the next, your identity formed by soft boundaries, or none at all.David Brooks, we of course interpreted his remarks are referring to Anglican church music, others related it to Anglican liturgy
And these words of music critic Alex Ross, which find their way on to this blog for the first time:
“Art does not stand apart from reality; if it did, it would have no life in it, no light, no darkness, no power.”"As If Music Could Do No Harm." The New Yorker, Cultural Comment Blog, 20 August 2014
“Art does not stand apart from reality; if it did, it would have … no power.”
As I look back over the ten year history of this blog (has it really been that long?) it seems that strands of this colloquium have been emerging for some time. I'm happy to try to collect these different strands into a more directed conversation. I am eager to see what emerges.
To bring this brief tour full circle for now, art, which Alex Ross so powerfully notes "does not stand apart from reality", has a peculiar kind of power. I believe this power is best explained by Thomas Merton summarizes when he says
“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.”
Labels: Alex Ross, authenticity, church music, David Brooks, identity, liturgy, Marva Dawn, music, power and art, Thomas Merton, wholeheartedness
I read with real disappointment "The Power List" in the Style Weekly periodical of Richmond, Va. In the Arts & Culture portion of the list not a single musician was listed, nor was any musical organization in this city named. Listed were philanthropists, Ballet board members, theaters, visual artists, non-profits -- one of whom wants to build a new baseball stadium, etc.
Does music really exercise no influence in the cultural life of this city? I suppose one shouldn't put too much stock into a list like this, but then none of the other Arts & Culture articles in this issue were about music or musicians either.
Whether or not we currently do, musicians should occupy a vital place in the cultural life of this city.
What's our role? What's our position? How can we fix this?
It's been a really rough couple weeks for jazz.
First, poorly conceived satire piece in The New Yorker aimed at an elder statesman.
It's supposed to be funny, but it's not. At best, it's a poor, confusing joke. At worst, it's racist.
And now someone dismissing the whole genre – not satire – in The Washington Post.
Thank goodness for this response.
All what jazz? Or: How to declare something dead without listening to it
There's an entire of generation of rising young jazz players wrestling with that perception — and with the idea that jazz music belongs to the past, not the present. Two years ago, the inventive young pianist Robert Glasper told me, "I love all my jazz masters and my elders that came before me, but I always say that people have killed the living to praise the dead."
The refusal to investigate Glapser's world — i.e. the present — is what makes this argument so bothersome. The article dismisses an art that the author is not currently engaged with, tamping his broadside with the disclaimer of simply speaking one's mind. These are "some of my problems," [Justin] Moyer writes. (And Moyer has a fascinating mind — I've known him through the D.C. punk scene since I was a teenager.)
But personal and provocative declarations are what make the Internet hum, and in music journalism, (and everywhere else), the clicks have become more important than the quality of the conversation. So the conversation stays urgent and stupid, preventing a substantive dialogue from ever getting started. A little more brain gets chewed up and spit out.
(via Instapaper)
How many of us musicians have to deal with the "urgent and stupid" conversation about an art form that our critics don't bother to engage with? How many of us really have the courage to? Or the time?
Music must belong in the present. Music of every genre happens in the present.
We can have better conversations. We must.
Reports of the death of music of all types has been greatly exaggerated.
Labels: HSPVA, Jazz, music, Robert Glasper
In this book, music - on records, tapes, in spun beats - becomes a light-filled emissary, a place where which we bridge time, hold memories, transcend divides, and draw closer to one another.Taylor, Tess. Book Review: 'Abide'. NPR All Things Considered 19 May 2014.
There's more! From the wonderful book Te Deum: The Church and Music by Paul Westermeyer (Fortress Press, Minneapolis).
[Martin Marty] suggests that in our "postmodern utterly relativist market-oriented world," if Christians agree there is a God and that we are to bring our best gifts of response, then it follows that there are intrinsic "betters" and "worses" within "the standards and traditions of a culture." The church at twentieth century's end has not sorted this out well and has tended to define everything, including its music, like the market-driven world around it rather than respond to its best instincts and treat people well. In place of the Te Deum and the long strand of the church's song which it represents, the temptation has been to substitute superficial praise choruses or poorly crafted attempts to tell God how we feel. That the church might have a message and a schooling responsibility has often escaped its recent gaze. As Marty notes, people get hooked on all sorts of things and work hard at them–"community college, bridge-playing, bowling, hair-styling, fishfly-trying, YMCA, fitness training, Tae kwon do, T'ai Chi, woodworking, barbershop-quartetting, bass-guitar playing, scouting, etc.," but the church at many points appears to have lost its nerve and the sense that its message is worth a comparable effort or that people deserve what is worth the effort, assuming that only what sells immediately has any value.
Labels: church music, churches, music, worship
"You can kill people with sound."
Arvo Pärt says this in this revealing conversation with fellow musical innovator Björk.
This video is a blast from the past. We previously blogged about it in a post with the rather ingenious title "madness - umlaut".
And when we think about the nature of music, we are confronted with music's "power". This inherent property of music is simultaneously reassuring and terrifying.
Of course, sound is literally energy. So is light. So is everything around us.
And it leads us to think about the nature of this mysterious spiritual "power" of mysterious things in this world in which we live.
The late, great modern gnostic George Gurdjieff claimed to have the power to kill a yak some miles away and to put an elephant to sleep just with the power of his mind (see "Gurdjieff, Georges Ivanovitch (1872-1949) - elephant dormition ability of")
Our bodies are, perhaps, centers of this mysterious power. Or at least nodes in the matrix-fabric of universal power-ness. Or something.
How do we use our bodies, these engines of creativity and performance?
This and other questions come to mind as I consider the wonderful subtitle to Sarah Barker's book The Alexander Technique, "the revolutionary way to use your body for total energy".
Wild. Total energy. What is that?
"In art everything is possible, but everything [that] is made is not necessary."
It's surely possible to use this energy for good. As Pärt suggests, to use it for life.
Or not.
Time to kill some yaks.
Labels: Alexander Technique, Björk, Gurdjieff, music, Pärt
It occurs to me that perhaps I might offer a window on what it is to be a church musician in Holy Week. And perhaps a few other thoughts too.
This evening at the parish where I serve, we offered "Poetry and Music: Meditations for Holy Week." The Reverend the Rector chose several poems, and I set them to music, mostly at the spur of the moment. This is the third year we have done this.
As I entered this service/poetry reading/concert (what is this thing that we do, exactly?) I had several things in mind. First, something the pianist Jeremy Denk said about the last Beethoven piano sonata, Op. 111 when he performed it here on Saturday evening. He talked about how the second movement is a variation set, but that the theme eventually disappears, and that eventually "the answers overwhelm the question."
That phrase looms large in my consciousness this week. What is this thing that we do, Holy Week? There's darkness, a few candles, there's foot washing, altar stripping, moaning and groaning, more candles, more darkness, washing people in water, and suddenly it's Easter.
There was a question in here somewhere. Maybe it was "what is truth" or something like that. But the question we ask in Holy Week – if we let it – can and should be overwhelmed by the answers.
I was grateful tonight that the Rector broke the "rubric" if we can be said to have such a thing for tonight's little happening, and included the following prose by Thomas Merton's Thoughts in Solitude:
“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.”
What wonderful reassurance for improvisation and for this life. "I have no idea where I am going."
But the answers come nonetheless.
Labels: Beethoven, church music, Holy Week, improvisation, Jeremy Denk, music, organ, poetry, Thomas Merton
This song, by English progressive rock band Renaissance, extensively quotes Litanies by Jehan Alain, and almost improves on it in some parts. (Thanks, David C.)
Today, on the 178th anniversary of his birth, I want to take a moment to remember what many people know about Johannes Brahms.
Absolutely nothing.
Several years ago I was involved in a performance of the Brahms Requiem, which was picked up by a local organization and widely publicized as "Johannes Brahms Reunion."
What does that even mean?
I can only imagine the thought process in that kind of situation. Oh, that looks like the name of some classical composer, so let me make sure I spell that right, and then an R word, got it. Okay, send this to thousands of people . . .
I'm not really interested in actually getting together with Brahms at this point. But neither, it seems, is of the general public aware of or interested in anything that I do.
It's a strange world.
At least Brahms might be gaining a little more name recognition . . .
Now that I've discovered The Shaggs, I think I understand popular music.
Labels: music, The Shaggs
Gravitational xylophone. Lovely. And a good way to think about rubato.
Labels: music, randomness
Two rappers seem to be flirting with classical music lately.
First it was Kanye West who was listening to a classical radio station in New York City.
Now Dr. Dre is exploring territory first charted by Gustav Holst.
Labels: Dr Dre, Holst, Kanye West, music
The blasting organ chords were rather disappointing; they left this listener wishing Music Hall still had a real pipe organ, rather than a bland-sounding electronic instrument.
And then there's this non-organ-related tidbit:
However, the final moments of the work were certainly no disappointment. As timpanist Patrick Schlecker was blasting out his closing passage, one of his drumheads broke with a loud crack. He continued playing, improvising a slightly different ending to avoid using the damaged instrument.Wener, Kyle. "Midori Shines with CSO." Cincinnati Enquirer 26 April 2009
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