I recorded this exactly two years ago, on an upright Young Chang . It's titled "September 8," though its working title was "No Substance World." I don't know why I never finish songs unless prompted. Perhaps I'll finish this one... winter's coming. I miss having a piano. I swear my creativity soars when one's around.
Also, sidenote: notating music on Finale Notepad is excruciating. I swear to never use this notation software again... back to the pencil and paper.
Also, another sidenote: graphic scores are the shit. They're probably my favorite way to notate music. When people say they can "read music," it pretty much means they can look at a piece of paper and execute the intended results, usually with other people. But what if those intended results aren't really... intended? The New York Miniaturist Ensemble has some really interesting shit to say about that. And they have a fairly decent, part humorous collection of graphic scores on their site.. check them out.
I guess I started this mix a really long time ago with the working title "Corrine's Mixtape." I got the idea from my friend Rob when he made a mixtape that "completely defined him" or something like that. I don't know if this mixtape completely defines me. But I could see myself writing every song on it, or at least contributing a chorus or something.
I noticed that my mixes are getting progressively shorter and shorter. I think that I subconsciously envision the larger framework as a "Side A." Also, I like making mixes for a specific environment, event, activity, ala music for purpose. I guess I always envision theme music for everything I do. This one's the background to my everyday life. Just sitting down. Talking and thinking. Staring out the window. Folding clothes occasionally, maybe learning a song or two before getting ready for work. You know.
A few notes: the Untitled Brand New track comes from their untitled demo album that was leaked in 2006 before The Devil and God are Raging Inside of Me was released in November. Some hardcore fans would argue that those demos are infinitely better than the mastered recordings. What people don't really know is that most of those songs were SUPPOSED to be on The Devil and God... but Jesse was so pissed/embarrassed that the songs had leaked, so he purposefully didn't put them on the album.
Now, in retrospect, I want those songs to be on the album and many of them aren't, and I'm probably more to blame for that than anyone. This record already feels incomplete to me without those tracks and probably will forever.
-Jesse Lacey
It must suck to hate the product of your art with only your own neuroticism to blame. Oh well. That's what major labels are for, right?
Rufus Wainwright's version of "Instant Pleasure" can only be found on his Best of album... and the Big Daddy soundtrack. Why do people shame others for enjoying sex for pleasure with multiple partners? I say be a slut and own it and fuck what they say.
Anyway. Enough of that. "Reparations" by Saul Williams is my battle cry. I impulse bought tickets to see The National in Kansas City last month.. super excited to see them again, hopefully from the rail, again, and this song is amazing live. I love the chorus to the Vampire Weekend song "Run." Apparently, according to my room mates, it sounds like Paul Simon. It's funny listening to old records, by the way, and realizing that most of my favorite artists now are mere reincarnations of 70's and 80's bands. I'm always weary to put Antlers songs on mixes... I just think that each song fits so perfectly in the new-age song cyle, Hospice, that taking them out of context makes them lose their essense. Whatever, I really like the second part of this song. Can't get that Kid Cudi song out of my life... Sam showed me an acoustic live version by this chick Lissie and I can't get the melody out of my head. The only reason I like the original better is that it's produced by Ratatat, and they're incredible.
I totally had this idea for a video before I saw this by the Morning Benders. Now I don't want want to do it because I feel like I'd be jocking their style. Still cute.
I could not, for the life of me, get this song out of my head at work today. Minor flashbacks of pole dancing on Halsted. Ow. I also blame Nikalas and Samantha for having the same exact music tastes. It came to my attention that I don't really listen to chick singers. I don't think it's on purpose. I guess I just relate to male front men more in the same way that Nik relates to Alanis Morisette. Haha. This one's for you, buddy.
Instruments: Ukulele / trumpet / my mouth / pill bottle filled with rice
hmm.. i guess i never really thought about that part of it
It's been a year since the initial conception of this project. Life has come full circle, but everything is still the same. That being said, music is and can no longer be just a form of escape- it must be the propeller of creative energy, a substantial reason to keep going, surviving, or else all this "figuring out" turns to a pile of bullshit.
After the JTIC meeting last night, Dietzler (who is a more badass version of me in 4 years... or the other way around) helped me to realize what I already knew. That time happens, that life happens, and we are responsible for our own complications. Is Conor Oberst right? Should we just take it easy, love nothing? Or is everything really everything, as Lauryn Hill says?
I made this mixtape thinking about solipsism, but it eventually transformed into something more hopeful. I guess some human beings can't help who they are or who they've become, but if life changes like the colors of the leaves, then I guess we have to believe we can, too.
I've been on some creative block for some time now. I don't know, I guess part of it is finding a reason to do.. anything. The motivation. It's kind of like the formation of a wave. I mean all these natural forces in the world create the actual wave. Without the external, it would just be existing there as water. Does it give less meaning to the physical and tangible liquid that it is? No boundaries in a world where waves exist, almost in spite of the meaning we give or don't give.
Little things happen and exist for that specific moment. When the waves come barreling down the rocks by the museum campus on the southern side of downtown Chicago, the ictus between them being and them not being is: the crash. Once it crashes, it no longer is. Parts of it splash onto the sidewalk- if lucky, onto the same people that determine their meaning. Most of it falls back into the water. Is there pleasure in the height of a wave? Or do people just think too much and make metaphors about dumb shit that nobody else gives a fuck about?
I'm back to "I don't know." But. I guess it's better than "I don't care."
So, I had a record button, 5 notes, and these instruments at my immediate disposal. AKA in reach of my chair, so I wouldn't have to get up. None of these instruments are mine, by the way.
Andrea's ukulele and Jamie's trumpet with Phil's harmon mute
An ocarina shaped like a little bird
A canister of loose change
Just ride the waves, like moving incidences, crashing into one another. I guess it's what makes life have momentum.
Listen with earphones, I recommend it most:
When things happen, do they happen by chance, or does fate exist to some extent? How random is random, really? I don't know what I really believe, but I know what I feel. And when your heart reacts so strongly to a piece of art, I believe the two of you were meant to meet, when you do, in your life, at that moment, to understand a little bit more of the world as it pertains to you, as it did for him/her, and to feel connected through time, as to never really being alone.
I guess. This guy's still alive though.
The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind is a kind of epic, a history of Judaism. It has Abraham, exile, and redemption. The movements sound like they are in three of the languages spoken in almost 6,000 years of Jewish history: the first in Aramaic; the second in Yiddish; and the third in Hebrew. I never wrote it with this idea in mind, and only understood it when the work was finished. But while I was composing the second movement, for example, my father would sit out on the deck with the newspaper, the sports pages, and every once in a while he would shout, "There you go! Another Yiddish chord!"
Listen to: Osvaldo Golijov: The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind
In the past 24 hours of its initial conception, this one has been dedicated to several different people.
Invisible things move so fast.
I wanted to change the title, but I can't think of anything clever, so we'll keep it.
You know that point where you reach a certain anger? You alienate yourself as to not hurt anybody.
After a while, you realize you have a lot of work to do.
I put this together at the height of that energy.
I don't think I feel this angry anymore. But. Nonetheless.
“Perhaps there is only one cardinal sin: impatience. Because of impatience we were driven out of Paradise, because of impatience we cannot return.” W.H. Auden
With the Sun square Mars, we’re possibly feeling more pressured and are more prone to acting on impulse rather than thought. That strategy can be risky and self-sabotaging, especially today when we can easily get in over our head.
It may be far wiser for us to take some time and gather our thoughts and put our minds at ease before acting. Sometimes, too, it’s better to let things play out.
We also want to make sure that we focus our attention, as best as we can, on whatever task it is that we are working on. That way we can help to avoid careless mishaps.
Also, focusing on our strengths instead of ruminating on our weaknesses, serves us very well now. When our thoughts are centered on what we can do, we feel empowered. However, when we dwell on our perceived deficits, that only adds to our feeling of pressure.
“Argue for your limitations and, sure enough, they’re yours.” Richard Bach
The Moon wraps up her sojourn through pragmatic Capricorn and enters experimental Aquarius at 4:52 pm EDT. That Moon sign change may also be when we are more inclined to throw caution to the wind. We need to remember, though, that caution often is a byproduct of wisdom.
Restless Energy
Download: GTFO
12 songs, 46 minutes
Click to enlarge playlist:
I think this one's spot on. It's a little shorter. Probably a Side A.
It's one track... 10 songs. I haven't made a one-track mixtape in a while... other than, you know on a real tape deck. I've got a really great tape deck (my room mate stole it from work). It reminds me of my boombox growing up. Trying to fit enough songs on each side without clipping or cutting out. Knowing the order by heart, fast forwarding through songs that were too long, everything in mono. There's something about putting a bunch of elements together, stealing other writers' words to make a specific statement in the larger framework... wondering what exactly happened to them, why we relate so much, too much. Was it better or worse than my experience? Just as profound, maybe, denting enough to have to write a song about it. It's not the best mixtape I've made. But. It's pretty spot on.
A few things- the recording of "Handshake Drugs" is from the EP, not A Ghost is Born. It's a little more scattered, more... seemingly unintentional, and Jeff's voice is down and more relaxed in this version. Pretty sure "I'm So Tired" comes from the new version of the White Album. "Admit It!!!" is kinda there as a joke, kinda not. I understand Max Bemis, I do. I want the world to be a better place, which is hard to do when everyone is all fucked up. It's there because of the second part of the song. Geez, he is such a badass. Anyway, Frightened Rabbit put out a new record this year. I'd say the highest point of the mixtape comes in the last chorus of "The Loneliness and the Scream." For some reason, I have a picture of me and all my friends in a drum circle by the lake. so much movement that clouds gravitate towards us and we all drown in our own energy. Sunsets. Sunrise? Hmm. I don't know. I used to love Dexter Holland's voice, and now it's kind of annoying. When I first heard Smash, I was like 13. I used to think how depressing this song was and could not understand how someone could ever get themselves into such a mess like that. And then I grew up and into my 20's, and I'm living through every word, but it's just... life. How things are. I think that's even more depressing.
Second verse of "Jesus Christ" always gets me. Jesse and I are the same person.
Jesus Christ, I'm alone again, so what did you do those three days you were dead? Cuz this problem's gonna last more than a weekend. Jesus Christ, I'm not scared to die, I'm a little bit scared of what comes after. Do i get the gold chariot? Do I float through the ceiling?
It's kind of funny that I've broken myself free from the chains of Christianity, but I am unable to be free from guilt of all my mistakes. Does that stay with you forever? Like.... no, haha. It doesn't. Not at all. Or, it shouldn't.
Grad school is definitely not in my short-term plans. Then how come I get so jealous of people who are making it? More specifically, Jonathan Cole, who is going to my dream school for my dream grad program in one of my favorite cities in the world. That wasn't a complete sentence. Maybe that's why I'm not going to grad school haha
I think one of the main reasons I now, realistically, don't share those same dreams is that I am not a bullshitter. I am a terrible bullshitter, and while I recognize the substantiality (is that a word?) shared in our relationship, that boy can bullshit his way out of death, or in this case, school. I'm not trying to diss the man; hell, I honestly don't know any smarter 26 year olds out there. I look up to him, somewhat like a brother, somewhat like my brother's friend, and I know we've influenced each other musically and in other ways.
I look at what I'm doing now, and I honestly (hate that word.. need to find a replacement) never thought I would be here. Ever since we were little, we (women) were taught to suck. In more than one way. Especially immigrants from the Philippines and other US-influenced third world countries (in their economy, in their politics, in their general consensus of a society).. we were taught to work sooo hard to be at the same level as those who have been born into privilege. Why exactly was that the goal to begin with? Why feel the "catholic" guilt when doing something out of the ordinary (or something I didn't go to school for) to make myself happy? Who said prosperity and success go hand in hand in a world where half the world can't fucking have a clean glass of water?
These are questions, thoughts, etc. that are starting to make some sense.
All I know is this-
My first semester of my junior year of undergrad, Gustavo Leone told me that if I ever stopped making music, I would get depressed. And he was absolutely right. But if I ever stopped making sense of this world, rearranging its nuts and bolts, and reaching for that "meaning" of life, I would get dead. I was already dead. I feel alive, in so many ways, and I'd rather be alive and depressed than floating face down.
p.s. informal concert tomorrow night- my string quartet's being performed wooooo
He was a French composer, born right in the heart of Romanticism... but his compositional style definitely is that of a 20th century technician. Imagine being born into a world where all the prominent composers are alive and making amazing music, but everyone is bored out of their fucking minds with the conventional, Western tradition of harmony. Or better yet (and probably more true), the bounds of Western traditional harmony were stretched so far and so wide that innovation in the actual music was hard to come by. Electronic music was at its premature birth with the invention of the Telharmonium in 1897. But other than that, composers in this era sought to find new ways to think about and organize music. I mean, you can't really change the 12 notes that every instrument in traditional harmony can produce, but you have control of pretty much everything else: the note order, the dynamics, the timbre, the arrangement, the articulation. Varèse himself was very much interested in timbre, in how things sounded.
I decided to call my music "organized sound" and myself, not a musician, but a "worker in rhythms, frequencies and intensities." Indeed, to stubbornly conditioned ears, anything new in music has always been called noise. But after all what is music but organized noises? And a composer, like all artists, is an organizer of disparate elements. Subjectively, noise is any sound one doesn't like.
I strongly urge everyone reading this to take a gander at Varèse's "Liberation of Sound." He does an excellent job at describing post-tonal nuances and gives the listener an idea of where he's coming from as related to compositional theory.
So to our ears, 20th century music, or new music, sometimes sounds like noise because we are preconditioned to hear a certain way. There are no triads. There are no "real" chords, verses, choruses, or easy signifiers of "keys;" however, other elements of the music, such as dynamic placement, rhythm, form, articulation, timbre, orchestration and instrumentation, register, etc. can give us hints on the content of the piece, or what the composer is trying to accomplish. This brings us into the language of post-tonal harmony, where notes aren't thought of as letters, but as NUMBERS, ala, C = 0, C# = 1, and so forth until B = 11. It's a way to get rid of the harmonic and melodic tendencies our ears are used to hearing in tonality.
i.e.:
I personally find it easier to picture these notes on a clock face.
So where does that leave us? I think Varèse said it best himself: In a world of "liberation from the arbitrary, paralyzing tempered system; the possibility of obtaining any number of cycles or if still desired, subdivisions of the octave, consequently the formation of any desired scale; unsuspected range in low and high registers; new harmonic splendors obtainable from the use of sub-harmonic combinations now impossible; the possibility of obtaining any differentiation of timbre, of sound-combinations; new dynamics far beyond the present human-powered orchestra; a sense of sound-projection in space by means of the emission of sound in any part or in many parts of the hall as may be required by the score; cross rhythms unrelated to each other, treated simultaneously, or to use the old word, "contrapuntally" (since the machine would be able to beat any number of desired notes, any subdivision of them, omission or fraction of them) - all these in a given unit of measure or time which is humanly impossible to attain."
Let's escape into this splendid depth, shall we?
Density 21.5
I started my analysis of Density 21.5 kind of haphazardly. As in, I put my iTunes on shuffle, and it was the first song that played. I was automatically transfixed; all these memories of music school came back to haunt me. I couldn't get passed the first five notes to save my life. Consequently, I have renamed the piece to 60 Measures of "I Don't Know What the Fuck is Going On."
Nonetheless, I started my aural analysis before looking at the score. You can definitely hear a motive (that three note incident in the beginning) and it returns in various forms and transpositions throughout the piece. There are also saturations of pitch interval classes, most notably, tritones, minor thirds, and chromatic steps (and their opposites). Other than that, and the fact that it was written for solo flute in January 1936, at the request of Georges Barrère for the inauguration of his platinum flute (21.5 is the density of platinum), this piece is one big, gigantic, gaping, atonal muleta of a question mark, and I am a confused bull, stagnant in the chutes of dissonance.
Side note: I bought the score at Performer's Music, which is probably the best kept hidden secret in Chicago. If you're ever in the city, definitely check it out. It's in the old Fine Arts building, and you have to take a manual elevator up to the 9th floor to get in. But they seriously have aisles of music- from Bach chorales, to the original printing of X-composer's new percussion trio that came out 2 weeks ago. After buying the sheet music and for the past three-ish weeks, trying to tackle this piece, leaving it, re-visiting it, listening to dissonance for hours on end, and even sketching charts, any conclusions I can make about this piece is merely speculation... which is both enthralling and excruciating at the same time.
In music, expectations are what make the un-expected so momentous. What happens when everything is unexpected? Some would argue that you just leave it- let it be what it is, let it be beautiful. Some would argue that you have to keep listening- listen over and over and over again, until you HEAR the expected. I want to elaborate on the latter. I think that most composers in this period, maybe with the exception of Schoenberg, don't want to abandon the expected; rather, their arrangements and visions redefine the expected, and careful analysis (with a lot of caffeine) can reveal those special moments within the larger-scale of the work. So... let's begin.
Dividing the Octave
Every scale in Western tradition spans within an octave, that is, the twelve half steps between a given note and a note with either half or double its frequency. When we get rid of modal scales, we're just left with twelve notes. Post-tonal composers saw this as an opportunity to create new scales, find different tendencies between notes, arrange notes in a fashion that wasn't so much "chronological" as it was "like putting puzzle pieces together." Once you get over the idea of an ascending scale, the octave pretty much looks like this:
(click)
In order to get Density 21.5's content, you need to understand the Octatonic Scale. It has to do with symmetry in the 12 notes. Basically, if you start with 0 (C), and move three intervals in either direction, you'll eventually get back to 0 (C). Which, makes sense... 12 divided by 3 is 4. You hit four notes before getting back to C. This of course can be transposed to 1 or 2.. starting on C# or D. With equal divisions of the octave, you can only count so far before returning to either 0, 1, or 2. Olivier Messiaen called this a "mode of limited transposition."
Picture: the middle row, equal division of the octave into 4 (3 half steps in either direction)
(click)
Now, if you actually consider the note names for any of these charts, for example, the first cycle in the above picture, you get:
0 = C
3 = Eb
6 = Gb
9 = A
which, in Western traditional harmony, is a diminished 7th chord, starting on C (or Eb, or Gb, or A). That, transposed to start on 1 or 2, will give you a C# diminished 7th chord and a D diminished 7th chord, respectively. In post-tonality, a collection of these pitches occurring in symmetry are called an interval cycle. This particular pitch cycle is notated like this: C30, with "C" referring to cycle, "3" referring to how many intervals are between each note, and "0" referring to the note it's starting on. So, consequently, if we define these tones that occur in equal divisions of the octave, we'll have this:
Any combination of two of the three interval cycles above will make an Octatonic Scale, which, by definition, is an 8-note scale with alternating whole and half step intervals. Pretty cool.
This is KEY to understanding Varèse's musical content. He doesn't use major keys or minor keys; he doesn't imply chordal harmony by melodic expectations; he simply (simply, ha!) uses a saturation of the Octatonic Scale in various combinations, and creates sections of the music by contrasting the three interval cycles against each other.
"So... he pretty much makes music out of a bracket."
Well... yes... but it's not just a bracket. It's a completely different way of thinking about and arranging music: the tendencies of scale degrees aren't there, the harmonic implications definitely are not there, and the performer has limited freedom because of the strict timing, phrasing, and articulation (which is necessary for continuity). In other words, he has deconstructed our ear's expectation, directly connected to how we think about melody and harmony, to create his own permeation of sound moving through time and space- which, essentially, is the mere definition of music.
My Analysis
Here's my analysis of Density 21.5... before I got tired of analyzing it. Let's just take into consideration the first three systems. As you can see, I circled most of the notes that fall into C31, which is the first interval cycle Varèse uses in this piece. Most would ask, how do you know which notes to circle, or which notes are important? I struggled with this for the longest time when analyzing 20th century music, but there are some clues. For example, more important notes are usually held longer. Now this is not to say the F# in measure 1 isn't important; actually, that entire three-note motive is what ties the piece together, melodically. It recurs in various transpositions, inversions, and octaves throughout the piece (my favorite times: in mm. 20-21, fluttertongued in a high octave; m. 50 where it's hidden so well between cycle transitions; and of course, m. 29, in the "B" section of the piece, broken up and retrograded in different registers).
One thing to look at is the DYNAMICS. Knowing that Varèse was a sucker for timbre, he used his dynamics very precisely and intentionally. A flute's dynamics also affect the timbre depending on the register- it's harder to play loud and low than it is to play soft and high. We're pretty much in the range of piano and mezzo-forte (forte only used in crescendos and decrescendos, until you hit the C# in measure 5). So you have all these notes kanoodling around an extremely variant volume, and then we reach a fortissimo in measure 9, after a breath mark (which he uses sparingly), landing on Db, whose enharmonic equivalence is what? C#. Also, if you look at the lowest note and the highest note from measures 1 - 10, in terms of register, they are C#4 and Db5. Which is the same pitch class: 1. Which makes it C31, or [1, 4, 7, 10].
This little melody has three little sections, which are composed thoroughly in their respective order. ie: the first "phrase" is carried out in the first part of the development, the second one in the second part of the development, etc. I'll mark this later when I get a better understanding of the rhythm and its different transpositions (right now I can only hear it.. sorry) BUT the arrival of D in measure 11 is a landmark moment, as we meet a new pitch class outside the C31 interval cycle, underlined by the triple fortissimo. And, Varèse kind of makes it blatantly obvious that we're going into a new interval cycle by writing a bunch of tritones- a stark, biting sound that used to be called the "Devil's interval," and also the interval that divides our cycle in half. aka, it's very prevalent in the C3 cycles, and automatic clue. The D - G#'s and the A - D# kind of gives it away. The combination of those two interval cycles also hint at the Octatonic Scale, starting on P2, which elaborates onto the first development of the motive, marked with a star. The short attacks of C31 and C32 on the last system of the first page build until the climax of the piece, which is also a change in tempo, and marks the arrival of a different interval cycle.
Speaking of tritones, it might be important to note that Varèse moved to New York City when he was 32 and was a total Dadaist. One has to wonder where this guy gets his inspiration. I can just picture him in his Brooklyn apartment, pecking away at his piano with the window open, people talking and screaming an laughing and whistling and sirens going by. If you listen closely, you can hear them around m. 31.
So, I guess if there's anything to be learned from this, it's that musicians had to find new ways to make their weird music not only understandable and explainable by other people, but interesting and accesible too. I think Varèse found an interesting motive that we can grasp onto to make this piece flow and have parts, which in turn, made him take liberty in the staying strictly in the lines of interval class cycles and pitch classes... those things are just there for "structure," anyway, it's what you do with it that is composition. I still haven't completely wrapped my head around it, but I think it's one of those things that'll come to me the more I listen and not think about it. He definitely succeeded in testing the flute to its fullest capabilities and skill. This is not an easy piece to play perfectly. Any electronic instrument would sound completely different from a live performer because of this mild obsession with timbre. But anyway.
Listening to: The Flaming Lips - Embryonic (2009); Spoon - Transference (2010), Against Me! - Searching for a Former Clarity (2005); Edgard Varèse (click play button next to song)
I've been doing "best of" mixtapes for the past like three years or so. 2009 was no different. A lot of good music came out last year, but according to Last.Fm, I listened to more Radiohead and Wilco than anything else. So I guess the classics never die.
I fell in love a lot in 2009.. more than I usually do in one year. Thom Yorke's cover is probably my favorite track of the year. Grizzly Bear's harmonies are my favorite moments of music as well. I first met AFI's album Crash Love (and Davey's new hair style) with hesitation and a little bit of resentment, but ended up listening to it more than other indie rock records with critical acclaim. My favorite discovery of 2009: The XX. So simple, so minimal, so parallel to my own life. The Antlers' Hospice had its moments, and it's probably more like a song cycle than a modern-day record, but I didn't find myself listening to it as much as I thought I would. Maybe because it's totally depressing. Daisy is also on my top 10 records of '09.. when is Brand New going to do something i DON'T like? Just when I thought they couldn't really go anywhere from YFW to TDAG.. once again, the Long Islanders prove me wrong (I will say that I like Jesse's songwriting infinitely more than Vinnie's.. no offense Mr. Accardi, Jesse just writes better). Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix was catchy, but there were only about four songs I liked on the record.. to Phoenix's defense, those four songs were better than most of the singles released in '09. I'd say the only real disappointment this year was the new Wilco. And, if you know me, that's kind of a big deal.
Osvaldo Golijov (1960)
He was the composer in residence of the CSO while I was in college. I have vague recollections of playing my music for him in Comp class... maybe it was another composer. I don't really remember. I was stoned a lot senior year. But Osvaldo Golijov is a sexy, sexy Argentinian man.
Osvaldo Golijov grew up in an Eastern European Jewish household in La Plata, Argentina. Born to a piano teacher mother and physician father, Golijov was raised surrounded by classical chamber music, Jewish liturgical and klezmer music, and the new tango of Astor Piazzolla. After studying piano at the local conservatory and composition with Gerardo Gandini he moved to Israel in 1983, where he studied with Mark Kopytman at the Jerusalem Rubin Academy and immersed himself in the colliding musical traditions of that city. Upon moving to the United States in 1986, Golijov earned his Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied with George Crumb, and was a fellow at Tanglewood, studying with Oliver Knussen.
read more here.
I guess to really know him you have to listen to his music. He combines so many different genres of music together to make his own. I fell in love with him when I borrowed Yiddishbbuk from the Columbia College Library. I listened to the first two tracks, which happened to be Last Round, written in 1996 after Astor Piazzolla's death. It was premiered in Burmingham in October 25th by the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, conducted by Stefan Asbury.
I liked his use of rhythm; the Latin, complex meter offbeat is there, as well as the danger of an Argentine Tango. The romance, the feeling, the heavy swoop-like movements back and forth as i envision the first movement. I dearly wished I had a score to further examine what instrument is doing what, but Golijov orchestrates so brilliantly and traditionally that it sounds like a full orchestra, not a double string quartet with a bass. Direct Piazzolla influence is evident in not only the sweeping, majestic violin of the second movement, whose vibrato could make two strangers fall madly in lust for each other, but in the eroticism tied together with the intent of this dance (supposedly, Argentine tango is supposed to be the sexiest of all the ballroom dances). Not to mention the second half of Lentissimo sounds just like Oblivion.
Nontheless, the First Movement is my favorite. The extended technique (I am a fucking sucker for weird shit), without making it seem cheesy. The heavy glissandos that seem to crescendo as they get faster (and longer, somehow. Maybe that's just me glorifying it). Omigosh. And it's such a sexy bassline, a heartbeat slowly creeping up faster and faster as things get heated and absolute passion just takes over. Orgasms everywhere, and not in the slang-talk kinda way.. you can actually hear them in the first violins. I may or may not have completely ripped off Golijov's ending to Movement 1 in my sequence in Los Angeles, and I may or may not have completely ripped off the entire thing in my First String Quartet. But Stravinsky said that the best composers steal, so it looks like I'm on my merry way.
This is what Osvaldo has to say about Last Round. The contrast of the two movements make more sense after reading why he composed it:
"I composed Last Round in 1996, prompted by Geoff Nuttall and Barry Shiffman. They heard a sketch of the second movement, which I had written in 1991 upon hearing the news of Piazzolla's stroke, and encouraged me to finish it and write another movement to complement it. The title is borrowed from a short story on boxing by Julio Cortázar, the metaphor for an imaginary chance for Piazzolla's spirit to fight one more time (he used to get into fistfights throughout his life). The piece is conceived as an idealized bandoneon. The first movement represents the act of a violent compression of the instrument and the second a final, seemingly endless opening sigh (it is actually a fantasy over the refrain of the song 'My Beloved Buenos Aires', composed by the legendary Carlos Gardel in the 1930's). But Last Round is also a sublimated tango dance. Two quartets confront each other, separated by the focal bass, with violins and violas standing up as in the traditional tango orchestras. The bows fly in the air as inverted legs in crisscrossed choreography, always attracting and repelling each other, always in danger of clashing, always avoiding it with the immutability that can only be acquired by transforming hot passion into pure pattern."
Listening to: St. Lawrence String Quartet - Yiddishbbuk (2002); Bear in Heaven - Beast Rest Forth Mouth (2009); Osvaldo Golijov - Last Round (download link)
And Astor Piazzolla: http://www.piazzolla.org
So... I do realize that I failed in the initial intent of this project. Did I update after September 1st? No. Did I write music in September 2009? Yes, but definitely not one song a day. However, I got over the stage of depression that pushed me to start writing again; as the new decade makes its immediate presence known to me and my life goals, I thought this would be a good opportunity to start my music blog. I will update on new music, my compositions, mixtapes I make, and anything that requires the use of ears.
2010 will also be the year of Corrine trying to get into grad school. I think I am mentally and emotionally prepared to be amazing.
So I will try to keep the emo to a minimum here.. unless we're talking about Rites of Spring. Speaking of which, I will also take this as an opportunity to get back into Classical music. I just need to make myself as happy as I know I can be this year, because, Christ, last year was such a mess. This year I have a goal. And my experiences have done nothing but lead me to realize that life is worthless without passion.
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I stumbled across eighth blackbird's blog at Union Station on my way home to the cold, desolate suburbs. I epic failed and forgot that New Year's Day is, in fact, a holiday, therefore running on holiday schedule, so I had about an hour to kill at the train station. I am extremely claustrophobic in non-urban environments, so I was looking for something- anything- to keep me from thinking and getting upset. I looked up grad school programs in UIC and eighth blackbird's website was one of the links.
I don't really know that much about them other than they're a new musc ensemble and some of their members are also members of ICE. I remember my old Adderall dealer saying something about them doing Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire somewhere in Chicago last month... oh, so THAT kind of new music. After reading their blog, it turns out Steve Reich wrote a piece specifically for them, called Double Sextet, and he was cool enough to send e-mail notes after hearing each rehearsal as he wrote the three movements. It reminded me of the rush, excitement, nervousness of first rehearsals. Not knowing if what you wrote is playable. Getting called out if you wrote whack parts. Obvious sucking. But it questioned a composer's direct association with the ensemble for whom he/she writes/envisions. I mean, you know your instruments, you kind of know their skill level, hopefully, if you're lucky enough to be in that situation, and you know the music you hear in your head. The communication of brain waves through notes and rests... that's when music is made. But sculpting that language so the performer hears EXACTLY what you hear in your brain and executes it rightfully so... that's when composition happens. Justice has to be made on both parts, or else it's worth nothing.
Do I really believe that?
I came across Matt Albert's Top 10 Moments in 2009 List, I thought it was brilliant. My favorite passage is also his #1 moment.
1) Denk Ives performance, Ojai
Saturday morning at Ojai, Jeremy Denk walked on stage and played the Ives First Sonata as if it were written for him. Which, I think, in retrospect, it was. Only an audience member for this, but since my career as a performer requires so many people to be our audience, it’s fitting to recognize this kind of experience as my top moment of 09. It’s become my challenge for 10: every time I walk onstage, make my best effort to allow our music to affect someone profoundly. Take risks, find the seams and unleash my own reality with every piece we play. If Jeremy can do it, so can we.
Unleashing my own reality... that is also my goal for 2010. To spill it out on a stage or on staff paper, to not be scared to let it all out, to be judged, ridiculed, and if lucky, to grow, learn, transition...
to make things right.
Listening to: Them Crooked Vultures, s/t (2009); Andrew Bird, Noble Beast (2009); The Eagles, "I Can't Tell You Why" from The Long Run (1979); Grizzly Bear, Veckatimest (2009)
You should listen to: eighth blackbird: http://www.eighthblackbird.com/recordings
I recommend listening to/purchasing "Fred," which was a piece written by Frederic Rzewski in 2000. There's also useful info about both the ensemble and the composer on said link.
