composer's notebook
essays & criticism on musical matters
commentary
Monday, October 31, 2005
Correction
It was bound to happen—an embarrassing goof due to either haste or simple negligence. The first of many, I'm sure, but hopefully easily put right ... Extraordinary pianist Stephen Gosling humbly reminded us that it was he, and not the other pianist of distinction who played (brilliantly, I'd like to reiterate) the George Tsontakis Bagatelle several weeks ago at the AME concert. Public apologies to Steve, and a promise to all that next time I will not rely on my swiss-cheesed brain and will write my entries with program in hand.
Stephen also hinted that a website of his own was forthcoming—this is great news because the likely inclusion of some audio samples would allow you all hear exactly the kind of piano-magic I'm talking about...
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
Transport
A brief pause in postings, due in no small part to efforts to cram in some decent bike rides before the weather turns really nasty. Because, well, I bought a new bike. In celebration, a posting on less artistic (more greasy) matters.
This new sturdy beauty gives a great ride, cackles maliciously at potholes, and looks quite hip to boot. My latest toy demanded a breaking-in, of course, so I began by putting it through its paces with an expedition up and down the East River (by the way, if for some reason your chauffeur can't deal with the BQE and you desire a helicopter to deliver your Preciousness to LaGuardia, I now know exactly where the heliport is) back down to my Lower East Side 'hood, down under the bridges (the Williamsburg, the Manhattan, the Brooklyn), where in a flash I'm at the soon-to-move Fulton Fish Market (smelly, no matter the time of day or the politics involved), past the South St. Seaport, the ferry terminals (Staten Island of course), around Battery Park to the World Financial Center and Battery Park City, and then up the Westside Greenway to the West Village for a bumpy crosstown jaunt across the cobblestones. Despite the anacronistic street covering, the Westside in general knows how to take care of bikes. The paths are lovely, paved, and trimmed with parks, greenery, and terrific views of Hoboken and Jersey City. The Eastside on the other hand more less shouts: You wanna ride your bike, huh? Let's see you try.
The new bike folds in half (yessir it does), so it fits nicely in the studio, so when it gets stolen (and it will, it's only a matter of time), it won't be here at home. But theft chances have also been cut drastically thanks to this massive beauty. 8.5lbs. of pearly steel, to wrap through anything and everything on the new toy, for those occasional trips to, say, purchase padded envelopes at Staples. You'll need 20 minutes with a power saw to get through this chain—and the name says it all: New York ... Fahgettaboutit.
In other transportation-related news, I'd very much like to be the one to tell you that when the City of New York decides it's time to re-pave a street, they simply wait until the middle of the night, bring a squadron of tow trucks, tow all the cars parked on the sides of the street onto the sidewalk, re-pave, and then tow all the cars back. Scary in its simplicity, isn't it? This fascinating tidbit brought to you by several sleepless nights filled with the dulcet tones of what I described above.
Saturday, October 22, 2005
Pronouns
An opening night treat last night—thanks to Better Half's latest expressions of design genius. The event was a new, very funny play by that guy who always seems to pop up at the end of The News Hour. The show features a fun star, but actually shows off an ensemble of startling talent—it's just a pleasure to watch them do their thing. As the playwright is an essayist and Man of Letters, it seemed like all the glittering literati of NYC turned out to cheer on their friend. So in addition to the instantly-recognizable Hollywood celebrities like him and her, there were many other familiar faces, mostly from the back of dust-jackets. But short of name-tags or an identifying subtitle on Charlie Rose, we'll never really be sure who many of them were. We did give it a good go at the after-party, however, confidently I.D.ing, him and his wife, him, and (most excitedly for me) him. What can I say, I like food. He writes really well about food.
Oh, and sing out people: I say Chicago in 5 games...
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Odds
Other than today's Times review of the AME's Powerhouse Pianists concert, I can only report on my discovery of Marilyn Manson's brilliant and absolutely smoking cover of Soft Cell's 80's classic, Tainted Love. I'll stop myself just before I say out loud that it is better than the original (heresy!) ... so determine for yourself: splurge on the $.99 iTunes Store bill and turn the volume way up. Credit where it's due, Madam—this ear-splitting Good Time is all thanks to Better Half's recent and exhaustive design research ... apparently The Club Kids dig the Manson.
Monday, October 17, 2005
Comments
I'm going to regret this, but fire away, if you'd like. Commenting has finally been enabled. It took me a year to work up the courage for this, so be kind...
Sunday, October 16, 2005
Piano Men
Last night I attended a great big concert in a teeny tiny space ... American Modern Ensemble, recently started up and expertly run by Rob and Victoria Paterson, produced an evening of new American piano works, showcasing the two best pianists in town (in town no doubt—best in the world I would imagine, I just haven't heard them all yet...) Blair McMillen and Stephen Gosling. Both are musicians of such compelling stature, that it's difficult to elaborate on the brilliance of these guys (full disclosure, both are school chums)—needless to add that I go hear them play whenever possible. But it was also the first time I've had a chance to hear them on the same program, that is, back to back, so that you could easily A/B their stylistic differences, and that made for a particularly fun concert.
There was a large menu that evening, representative of many disparate 20th-century techniques and styles (this was Rob's programming theme, and it worked well), but despite the general level of high quality, taste is taste, and pieces did pop out to me as strikingly good: Steve played a set of miniatures, including a Nancarrow tango and a David Rakowski etude which were both really terrific, and Blair played George Tsontakis's wonderful Bagatelle—excellent and par for the course for George, who I think I've said before, I'm pretty sure doesn't know how to write bad music. The top two for the evening though were Chester Biscardi's Piano Sonata, a lush, romantic, Ruggles/Ivesian/Sessions-type concoction which stuck-out stylistically in the programming more than a bit and so stayed with me the whole evening, and Annie Gosfield's Brooklyn, October 5, 1941, a barn-burning pounder of a piece played with baseballs and catcher's glove. Yes, more than a little gimmicky, but who cares really because the piece actually works great, and Blair absolutely sold it. Not a frown in the house after McMillen played the Gosfield—everyone had a big slap-happy smile on their face.
In other odds/ends, ye old printer finally found its final resting place today. I choked up a little as I walked away from its forlorn perch atop that giant pile of off-white circuitry (why is every piece of non-audio electronics that color?)... but told myself it's for the best. At least it will now be recycled into another fun piece of consumer goods. The circle of life...
And here's more, in-depth, on that intriguing Tower commission-consortium I mentioned last week.
Thursday, October 13, 2005
Go Team
I've been researching consortium-structuring lately, for obvious reasons. This kind of thinking, though extreme, is good for everybody involved.
Monday, October 10, 2005
Longer Faster Higher
Some intriguing conversations this weekend with a certain far-flung conductor (a wunderkind of some intimidating intellectual heft), about the possibilities of making The Rivers of Bowery into a larger work. This has come up before, and even at the the premiere itself, voices for whom I have only respect and deference were chorusing that they heard a larger work in there.
At the first stirrings of the idea back in February, I wondered if perhaps I hadn't missed the mark with the piece. As it was, this was a terrific opportunity to premiere a new work at the CBDNA Conference in NY—it was only that BB's sole restriction for the project was the length. Thus, the daunting challenge of a three-minute piece—which, I'm here to tell you, is considerably more difficult to wrestle with than the longer, more movement-lengthed fare.
Time is a composer's friend—it's elbow-room in a piece. Take away the space, and you are left with no room for error. Structurally, time affords repetition, without which, generally, there is no form. (I hear GT's voice echoing that particular lesson in my head, thanks George!) So without repetition, likely not available for such a time restriction, the material has to be stripped down and lean, and at least for me, the form comprised of one larger gesture, rather than many smaller ones. This was my goal with ThROB (JB coined that acronym, and I give him all credit and blame), at least. Much of the piece is basically one chord, and the structure, one large hairpin (opening on the right-hand side, of course)—all as simple as I could muster. As the time requirements for that piece were essentially all I thought about for months, my initial reaction to calls for a longer work were guarded, and probably a little defensive.
But my ego has calmed down with time, and now I totally understand what everyone is saying—it's not that it doesn't work as an overture, it's that the material itself is chunky enough to be worthy of much deeper exploration, and that I take as a huge compliment.
And I do very much like what I did in that piece. In fact, I think it's some of the more engaging material I've come up with in a while—so much so that the idea of working with it more thoroughly in a larger piece, with more development and breadth, is really attractive. Here's the thing though: I'm not sure it's just a larger work. Rather, the more I've thought about it, I think it's meant to be a much larger work. 3 movements maybe, perhaps 20' or so in length. And as such, it's a more-thorough dalliance with Howl specifically, and the Beats in general...
I'd ask the loyal notebook readers (oh yes, I know who you are) to engage in the debate and weigh in, but sadly sports fans, there is no recording of the piece online yet. Don't change that Bat Channel though—an excellent commercial recording is in the can (just not yet edited), and there are some terrific upcoming live performances we just might be able to pillage. Until then, we suss out the situation, send out the feelers, and see who might be interested in joining such a project.
So now, after much thought and ego-checking over the last few months, I'm completely intrigued by the whole prospect. Martha would croon that this idea is A Good Thing, but I'd say it's got the makings of Huge. Stay tuned.
Thursday, October 06, 2005
DIN8, RIP
A box the size of a small refrigerator arrived yesterday—that would be my new printer, a monster of a thing, equipped with enough hooplah to service a small country's paper currency needs. I needed a practical replacement for my ancient GCC XL 608 tabloid laserprinter (loved so much I got myself another GCC)—a workhorse purchased in 1996 as the very first postscript tabloid printer available, and now so outmoded that in its last days the poor thing was jury-rigged to within an inch of its life, simply to keep it connected to a modern personal computer.
As a composer, and for many years as a copyist as well (more on that sometime later), this old dog got a workout. Scores, proofs, parts, covers, more scores, more proofs, more parts ... I estimate that the 608 went through about a dozen toner cartridges (each at more than $200 a pop), outlasting 4 different computers. Officially, it printed 38,908 pages for me. Considering that at least half of those were 11x17 pages, we can conservatively estimate that that it actually printed something in the ballpark of 60,000 (letter-size) pages, most of those containing many horizontal lines in groups of five... The manual, still extant and on the shelf after all these years, tells me that the printer's life was 30,000 letter-size pages. Hmm.
Built before every printer was equipped with ethernet and usb ports, this sucker featured only serial and parallel offerings. Thaaaat's right. Serial. Remember that? That little round cable with those pins (that broke) which you couldn't unplug while the computer or peripheral was ON? You could even use them with telephone cable for a network connection (of sorts). Apple killed the serial port, oh, about 7 or 8 years ago. But I was undeterred. For a while, the printer was connected through a separately-purchased serial port I installed myself into a non-serial-equipped G4, just to thumb my nose at the computer manufacturer gods and what I considered to be their fickle connectivity designs. When operating system software no longer supported the port, I resorted to this, a nifty little number which actually allowed the 608 (remember, armed only with a serial port) to connect to my network. It was slow (you have no idea) but it worked. And so I reached around to slap myself on the back for my ingenuity and ability to eek out another few years of service from this relic.
When the 608 finally began to occasionally and randomly blink with scary hardware error messages, and when I started to receive e-mails and messages from GCC informing me of a recall/retrofit program due to their discovery that this old model might spontaneously burst into flames, I began to think that perhaps it was time for a new printer. It was time quite some time before, of course, but I'm not one to impulse-buy. I marinate over these matters for years.
So here the new beauty sits. Sturdy. Capable. Connectable. Eager to save me from shaving another year off my life by sparing me the evils of manual feeding and doing the double-sided printing for me. It's a fantastic printer—Mackey has the same one for all of his composerly needs, and has given it exemplary marks ... but as I look at that old 608 on the floor, forlorn and abandoned, awaiting sale, donation, or the Best Interests of Mother Earth (whichever comes first), I can't help choking on my regret. Really, what did it ever do but endlessly print a rainforest-worth of pages for me in the Greater Service of Music? This puppy deserves a better fate.
But, no Mom, Old Yeller's my dog. I'll put him down myself...
Sunday, October 02, 2005
Longshot
It's that time of year again. Last week the major occupation here was the completion of various grant applications and proposals, all with impending deadlines. This is always an operation flirting with the razor's edge of hubris: "Oh yes, I deserve your money! Here's why." Etc. Add on the sheer terror of spending your days writing pages and pages about yourself and how great you are, and you're now staring into the terrifying abyss of self-worth...
Plus there's the hopelessness of knowing that actually, you have a snowball's chance in Hades, and perhaps your time would be more productively spent doing, well, almost anything else. I've found the only way to make it to the deadline for these things is to force a Lottery-like attitude: "You can't win if you don't play..." Or, more aptly put in recent NY State Lotto advertisements, "Hey, you never know."
The Futility came home for me on Friday when I walked into a massive midtown edifice to hand in an application, whereupon the security guard, before I could even utter the name of the well-known and celebrated Foundation housed in said massive midtown edifice, smirked, rolled his eyes, and directed me to the building's "Messenger Center". Oh, you mean I'm not the only person to come in here today, one day before the deadline? In fact, I'm sure I was the 326th, by the reaction of the guard.
Ah, New York. Not only is it the only place where if you have an idea to do something fun or interesting, 25,000 other people have had it before you (and got there earlier and are more prepared and have more money to spend), but also everyone in town is applying for the same grants you are. Ya gotta love this burg. No other city provides that disturbing whispering in your ear, "What, you think your'e special?"