Broadway Classroom

Another highlight of our New York trip (It was pretty much all highlights!) was the group's Broadway Classroom experience. Members of the girls choir, parents, and chaperones all participated in an excellent crash course in Broadway performance culture presented by Brent Frederick, a very active music director-pianist-conductor, and Scott Mikita, a swing from the current Phantom cast. They led us through a portion of the number "Masquerade," ably teaching the music, the diction, the choreography, and holding a little mock audition. This was all really fun and I highly recommend it to other groups of musicians going to New York.

In case you're wondering, a swing is a performer with the capability and flexibility to perform various roles in a production depending upon who is ill on any given occasion. In Mr. Mikita's situation, this involves being prepared with music, text, choreography, and acting for the majority of the major male roles in Phantom eight times a week, and sometimes portions of multiple roles during the same performance. That's very, very impressive.

While we're considering what these gentlemen do for a living, I would encourage music students to take a look at Mr. Frederick's resume. I'm sure you'll notice the variety of musical work he has done from regional theater to a cruise ship show to Broadway. Also, notice his degree - music education! This should be enlightening to those who are concerned about what job their degree might lead to. This should also wake up some who are in a confused sleep and are dreaming that music ed people pursue their degrees because they can't make it in a more performance-based part of the music world. Lastly, be sure to read through the list of skills he shares to make himself more marketable. I've copied it below. These amount to keyboard skills, aural theory, and technology studies - the things you often wonder when you'll ever need them. I just happened to notice these this morning and thought I should point them out.

SPECIAL SKILLS

• Sight-reading, including audition accompanying for NYC casting directors and for Broadway shows.

• Transcribing by ear.

• Tech guru: Expert proficiency in Finale and Sibelius; synthesizer programming; digital audio workstations including Pro Tools, Digital Performer, Logic, and Ableton Live; orchestral mockups

  Now for what I've been wanting to share.


Mr. Frederick and Mr. Mikita presented a superb session that showed how all the fundamentals of creative work - the musical disciplines you learn in school - are the exact things you apply everyday in the professional world of music performance. Personally, it was affirming to hear the same messages I heard from my teachers - messages that I try to convey to my students - being promulgated by these artists in their part of the culture.


What are those messages?

1. Arts are multi-layered and the performing arts require that performers engage with the layers.

You learn notes, technique, diction, musicality, choreography, etc., and then, keep adding more and more layers to make the end result an awesome expression, something out of the ordinary.

2. Subtext, subtext, subtext.

You need to apply all the aspects of all those layers with reason. Whether you're playing notes or moving across the stage, there has to be something going through your mind, something stirring your emotions. Otherwise, the audience gets no charge. Singers do it. Choreographers do it . . . It's how you make your motivation a part of the work.

3. The audience gets it.

The audience doesn't have time to deconstruct and evaluate each and every little move. Hopefully, you've saturated everything with ideas through years of focus and months of rehearsal. That sustained effort, that care for the work, comes through, at the very least, on the subconscious level. That might work better for the experience of art, anyway.

4. Conductors and directors want to see that you can take direction.

Hopefully your brilliance will show up and show through at your audition, but if you can't be responsive to the ones with the vision for the show, that won't matter much. The more malleable you are, and the less room has to be made for your personality, the better. So, as Mr. Mikita put it, "Be game and it'll be fun."

5. Education that is both specific and well-rounded is key.

During the question and answer time at the end of our session, Mr. Mikita was asked about what a young person with an interest in a career in theater should be doing now. His answer? Do as much theater as you can. Live life - theater isn't about theater; it's about the world outside the theater. And go to college.

Finally, I would add that these two successful genetlemen were balanced, poised, and readily able to engage with their students and fellow human beings in a normal, healthy, positive way: not the warped stereotype of artists that's often promoted but the reality of disciplined professionals, whatever their field.

Thank you, sirs, for modelling musicianship, professionalism, good teaching, humility, and humanity for my young friends and me!

Jazz at Lincoln Center

While in New York, Kathy and I visited one of America’s great art music temples – Frederick P. Rose Hall, home of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. Sitting atop several floors of the Shops at Columbus Circle, the entrance to the venue is a lively place with a bit of the ambiance of a grand cinema. The occasion was the conclusion of a season exploring “how jazz has both integrated and influenced the rich musical traditions of the Caribbean and North, South, and Central America.” The performance was a tribute to Latin Jazz greats, Tito Puente and Machito, coordinated by bassist Carlos Henriquez.

At first blush, one saw that the three percussionists basically functioned as one organism, the saxophones sounded like a rank of organ pipes, and the persistent presence and miraculous nuance of the cowbell made it the soprano soloist of the group. Soon the trumpets started playing masterful improvisations.

As the evening went on, I started to recognize the many layers that made the experience so good. In  addition to all of the above, the instruments were simply played very, very well. Each musician's sound was rich, warm, brilliant, and distinctive. When combined, the instruments of the ensemble were also a marvel of sonority, blend, and coordination. Undergirding it all, professionalism was a given.

Then there was the excitement, imagination, and genius inspiration of the music itself - tremendous diversity joyfully combined in close-knit communities all across the stage. The mission statement of Jazz at Lincoln Center puts it like this:

We believe Jazz is a metaphor for Democracy. Because jazz is improvisational, it celebrates personal freedom and encourages individual expression. Because jazz is swinging, it dedicates that freedom to finding and maintaining common ground with others. Because jazz is rooted in the blues, it inspires us to face adversity with persistent optimism.

Education is also a core value of Jazz at Lincoln Center and the evening's performers were unabashed advocates for the continuation of their tradition. History was alive and onstage with them as they expressed the importance of doing our generation's duty of appreciating and handing on this heritage. That duty involves not just hearing, loving, and sharing the music, but also supporting the infrastructure necessary to keep it going - publications of scholarship, outreach programs, and the hall itself. A decade into its existence, it's already time to update the fantastic facility in which these fine musicians perform. 

Twelve plus hours after the concert, I was still feeling its rhythms. But on the night of, the audience's well developed patina of concert etiquette seemed to inhibit a visceral response to the stirring elements of this music rooted in ancient religions. A little dancing broke out at the end, but only after considerable cajoling from the stage.

Reflecting on the specialness of that evening and of the performers who made it possible, I realized more fully that charisma is not a way one acts but is an entrancing and involving thing that sometimes sneaks in unnoticed when one is very truly doing.




  

Morning Has Broken

Quite some time has passed since my last bit of blogging. Most of that time has been spent in activities concluding the school year. I believe things at school, at the Lasker Summer Music Festival, and with my life in general are in an interim period as we prepare for the dawning of a new era. Thus, it seems appropriate to blog today about experiences with the hymn known to many of us as "Morning Has Broken."

The tune name is BUNESSAN which is also the name of a little town on the Ross of Mull, a peninsula on the Scottish island of Mull. Kathy and I passed through the town on our way to Iona about this time last summer. Here's a picture I took somewhere around Bunessan.

As I recently shared with a friend, it seems to me that a lot of old tunes such as this one reflect the contour of the landscapes in which they came into being. The rapid but lyrical and airy rises and falls of BUNESSAN seem to fit well with the mountain vistas and sea scenes that one can view from the town.

We don't know exactly where the tune comes from, and the actual reason it is known as BUNESSAN is that it was first published with a text by Mary MacDonald (1789-1872), poet, Baptist, and wife to a crofter who lived and created her work near Bunessan. Here is the rich first verse of her famous text:

Child in the manger,
infant of Mary;
outcast and stranger,
Lord of all;
Child who inherits
all our transgressions,
all our demerits
on Him fall.

Many wonderful texts have since been paired with this great tune. Taking time to sing through the page scans on the Hymnary.org page for BUNESSAN can be a heart-warming devotional activity. In addition to the well-known "Morning Has Broken," you will also find a lovely wedding hymn, a powerful Trinitarian text by John Bell, and a version of St. Patrick's Breastplate.

Finally, I would like to share my own version which is what prompted all my thinking this weekend about BUNESSAN. 

During this summer's Lasker Summer Music Festival, I presented a recital and a talk exploring the goodness of diversity. The recital was a tour of works not included on the usual classical piano itinerary which consists mostly of German and Austrian journeys with occasional side-trips through France, Spain, and Russia. I've copied the program at the end of this post for the curious reader.

The second half of the recital was framed by works that reference the diversity of creation, not just the diversity of nations. (The first half was framed by works that reference various Americas that exist within the nation we call the United States.)

I wrote my arrangement of "Morning Has Broken" for an SEU student who, at the time, was a church music major. She has since gone on to be a missionary in Tanzania. BUNESSAN was a meaningful tune to her and her mother. In addition, she was studying the first prelude in Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier and was good at major scales. You can hear those influences in the arrangement. In addition, each section of the arrangement expresses a key phrase from one of the verses -

 "Blackbird has spoken like the first bird."

"Sweet the rain's new fall . . . like the first dewfall"
 

"Mine is the sunlight!"

The photos posted with the performance are from Pentecost morning in Lasker. It was on this visit to Lasker that I realized that, similar to Iona, Lasker is a "home for music pilgrims."

Lasker Summer Music Festival 2015

Lasker Baptist Church

July 22, 2015      7:30 P.M.

Charles Hulin, piano

Kathy Hulin, horn           Greg Parker, baritone

Jefferson’s March                                                       Alexander Reinagle

Rapsodia Negra                                                               Ernesto Lecuona

Live, Laugh, Love                                                               Charles Hulin

Allqamari Kanki!                                                                Quechua Song

Tango Finale                                                                      Astor Piazzolla

Ghost Dance of the Zuñis                                                    Carlos Troyer

 Intermission

Morning Has Broken                                                    Arr. Charles Hulin

Gamelan                                                                      Leopold Godowsky

The Law and the Prophets                                            Han song, adapted

Adventures of an African Boy                                     Margaret Goldston

         Theme

         Along the Zambesi River  

         Meeting a Chimpanzee

         Dancing with a Friend      

         A Rest under the Baobob Tree

         A Stroll through Waving Elephant Grass     
         Racing with a Giraffe

         A Tribal Ceremony

Graceful Ghost Rag                                                           William Bolcom

All Creatures of Our God and King                            Arr. Richard Walters

Time

Last night, I was surprised by an answer to a question I wasn't asking.

The question is related to questions I ask, but I don't think I've ever really considered it before.

Here it is:

Why was time created?

The answer was a profound one, one I found a little reductive
(perhaps because I was being too literal)
and kind of jarring.

I normally think of time as a mystery.
What is it? I don't know.
But we seem to be passing through it,
or maybe it's more like we're caught in it.

Plus, it's so very important to the experience of music.
Really, it's important to the experience of anything,
at least for those of us who live on planets.

It seems we need to measure it, to mark it off in manageable segments.

Here's the answer to the question, compliments of Thomas Keating.

Time was created so that we might learn to wait.
In waiting, we develop a more right relationship to God through faith alone.

On some level, I like this,
and I don't mean to reject the deeply rooted ideas of a teacher of Keating's stature.

But in spite of its profundity and truth,
and even its pointing to mystery,
it feels a little mechanistic to me.

Of course I've taken his statement out of context - a context I don't know a lot about - and I readily acknowledge that what he says here actually makes sense to me. I'm also glad he raised the question for me as I think it will become an abiding aspect of my discourse with others.

If I were to attempt to answer the question, I would begin like this:

It's hard to imagine not existing in time. As a creature who lives in time, I don't know how to picture life that does not consist of moment after moment. We hear of walking the streets of gold in eternity, and that sounds like an experience of time to me, only it doesn't end. Worlds end, and we end in this world, but does time end?

This whole time thing seems to have been there from the beginning. "Beginning" seems to be a time thing, as well. On the first day, God created darkness and light, the first day. That's a marking of time. And a beautiful one, at that. Our place in space provides just the right time periods of light and dark for life to come into being. Also, for Being to come to life.

Day 2 of creation couldn't be a thing without Day 1 when days became a thing. These days allowed for God to work in a way that we creatures of time could consider. And we learn in the second creation narrative that God labored over us. We were not spoken or thought into existence in less than a moment. We were crafted with care from the dust and breathed into so that we might have life and engage through time.

Why time?
For many, many reasons and things beyond reasons.
We grow in time. And that is beautiful.
We can move about over the course of time. And that too, is beautiful.
Relationships develop through time. Beautiful.
New life comes to pass with time. Beautiful.
In time, we can continue to praise.
We can fill this mysterious substance with the beauty of worship.

Time allows for the vibration of a string,
for the existence of a tone,
for sensing the trajectory of a phrase and feeling its fulfillment,
for an impulse to become a dance,
and for a mood to become poetry.

And sometimes, we wait. Yes, waiting can let us know that we are not in charge, that one who is superior to us is doing the scheduling. But there is so much in my waiting that I don't believe is from God, and coercive manipulation through time doesn't seem quite like Jesus to me.

In reality, it seems more likely that God is doing the waiting.

The Ancient of Days - what a tremendous and unfathomable character!
One who creates all but is willing to wait for me, to put me somehow in the driver's seat.
What a relinquishment of control and willingness to be vulnerable!
What freedom granted!

And what pain that One must endure.

I know from my own waiting that the ones who make me wait are not always trying to assert power. Often, they are oblivious to good desires for their lives. What is needed in these situations is not a response to my schedule or authority but fresh priorities, new vision, a reorientation.

What is God waiting on from me?

I believe it must somehow be the same but much better - a wonderful ongoing rebirth.
I think God must desire a simple turning and returning within me to notice and accept God's wise desires for good, God's great willingness to love.

Why was time created?

I like this answer from Henri Nouwen:

"God loved you before you were born, and God will love you after you die. In Scripture God says, 'I have loved you with an everlasting love.' This is a very fundamental truth of your identity. This is who you are whether you feel it or not. You belong to God from eternity to eternity. Life is just a little opportunity for you during a few years to say, 'I love you, too.' "



  

  





 

Rich Days

This March has been perhaps the busiest ever at our house or at least for the people who live at our house. But I could be wrong about that as there have been some really busy Marches before.

At any rate, last Thursday I enjoyed an evening of "ekphrastic" poetry featuring poets from Southeastern reading at the Polk County County Art Museum. They were responding to large canvases of imaginary seascapes. Their words left me with a desire to listen to whale songs and shrimp songs. A composition is forthcoming.

If you're not familiar with the term "ekphrastic" I suggest looking it up as it's a fun one to know.

On Saturday night, I had the privilege of coordinating a concert to conclude the 2015 conference of the Society for Pentecostal Studies. Our aim was to convey a sense of diversity, and we did so with a range of ensembles and repertoire including

• a piano solo from Arthur Farwell's Impressions of the Wa-Wan Ceremony of the Omahas
• a Chinese folk song sung by a colleague
• a pasodoble played by our string quartet
• a string quintet I wrote based on a phrase from King's Letter from a Birmingham Jail
• several Latin selections played by our big band and a combo   

It was a joyous experience as a result of much collaboration between members of the Society, our students and faculty, and the folks at the Lakeland Center (the venue where the event took place). We were touched by the enthusiasm of the Society's members who noted the special appropriateness of the program as a bridge to the theme of next year's conference. To me, that says the Spirit was also involved in this collaborative effort. For anyone who might be interested, I've copied my comments from the event at the bottom of this post.

Then on Sunday, I attended the Central Florida Bach Festival where soloists, choristers, and instrumentalists were joined by the Florida Southern Girls Choir, which Kathy conducts, for an inspired afternoon of Bach.

The program was the life Christ through the works of Bach, a "What if Bach wrote Messiah?" if you will.  Movements from various cantatas and from the Christmas oratorio and St. John Passion were masterfully programmed to create a new oratorio of sorts. It was a combination of works Bach could possibly have arranged that way but didn't. The audience was exhilerated by the experience.

I expect to remember these rich days for a long time.



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SPS Concert Remarks

My name is Charles Hulin and I am the chair of the Department of Music at Southeastern University. On behalf of our music students and faculty, I want you know that we consider it an honor and a privilege to share with you this evening. It is our sincere prayer that the Spirit will use this musical offering to provide each of you some distinct blessing as you go from this place.

In choosing the repertoire for this occasion, we sought to create an atmosphere of reflection as well as celebration. And in keeping with the nature of this conference, we are also presenting works that move beyond some of the usual boundaries of our music-making.

We begin with a performance by one of our piano majors, Caitlynn Christiensen.  She will be playing an early 20^th century work by the American composer Arthur Farwell. It is titled “Receiving the Messenger” and it comes from Farwell’s work Impressions of the Wa-Wan Ceremony of the Omahas, which expresses both the composer’s European schooling and his engagement with Native American culture.

Next, Dr. Shudong Braamse, one of our voice faculty members, will perform a stirring Chinese song in which the singer, who has travelled far from home, addresses her mother. She says to her, “When the ripples in the river smile at you, when the bamboo flutes are played for you, when a beautiful boat is sailing toward you, when you hear a folksong floating from far way – that is me!”   

We now turn to our string students for a very famous piece of Spanish dance music, a joyful pasodoble by Pascuel Narro. Our string quartet consists of Wesley Mason and John Morgan Roe on violins, Lorenzo Sanchez on viola, and Ronnie Wiesniewski on cello.

Violinist Winter Jackson and percussionist Mike Tuck will join the quartet for our next work, which is an arrangement of the spiritual “Deep River.” A few years back, I wrote this arrangement to commemorate Martin Luther King Day. Its title “Psalm of Brotherhood” comes from a passage in King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail in which he wrote: “Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.” (I would submit that in some ways it might still be that time.)

  

Now is it is my pleasure to introduce my colleague and friend, Dr. Mark Belfast and the Southeastern University Jazz Ensemble.

Psalm 23

Last night, I was reading the prologue to the Gospel of John with some friends and it struck me that only one portion of one verse of the passage is in present tense. Verse 3a reads, "The light shines in the darkness . . ."

My mostly subconscious assumption seems to be that one can and should always be in the light. But this passage acknowledges that light shines in the darkness in the present tense.

Such a beam of light fell across my soul during an SEU chapel gathering yesterday. In the early morning, we were led to read and pray Psalm 23. I suddenly found myself reading and praying it in a way I never have before.  

1 The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
     I have to stop here for some time to acknowledge that so many do want.
  
² He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
     Green pastures -
           Under monuments or no monuments, 
           we eventually lie down for eternal rest 
           in the earth's great green pastures.
                  Thanatopsis  
     Still waters -
          Prayer for clarity and peace
          for myself and others. 

³ He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
     What is this psalmist's idea of the soul? And what is its restoration?
          Whatever the idea, it seems that he, too, 
          was seeing himself as more than meets the eye
          all those years ago.
 
⁴ Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
       Even in the face of death and evil,
            security in the spirit can remain.
                   
⁵ Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
       Essential to faith is relationship with enemies.
            In that regard,
            Christ enacted sacrificial love,
            removing emnity.
            The cup of his blood overflows.
            That is our model.

⁶ Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.
       A moment of receptivity and openness before the richness of God's self.

First Mozart

These days, I am having the privilege and fun of supporting a piano student in his first serious efforts at engaging with Mozart. He has played two or three Beethoven sonatas and done so rather well. A couple of lessons into his Mozart experience, he initiated a thoughtful conversation about how playing Mozart is distinctly different from playing Beethoven.

In Beethoven, there are many details to which the pianist must constantly pay attention. The type of change that occurs in the music is characterized by many different types of detail that create an expressive type of beauty from one moment to the next. The first movement of the Pathetique Sonata is a clear example of this.

The beauty of Mozart, on the other hand, is a matter of aesthetics - a matter of pattern, balance, and proportion. (Dr. Kaplinsky taught me this comparison many years ago.) What this means for the pianist is consistent emphasis on clarity and phrasing. This requires getting your ears around all the turns of Mozart's melodies and disciplining your hands and feet so that you can keep your listeners deftly moving along those melodies, too. Solomon's playing of K. 576 gives an idea of this.  

Playing either composers' music is demanding. In Beethoven, you have to keep up with the pace of change. And you're performance will never rise to the level of the goodness of the music. In Mozart, you have to stay in that focused Mozart mode I just described. It has been likened unto an act of musical hygiene. Your playing of Mozart will reveal, pretty much in every moment of the performance, your commitment to good planning, your responsiveness, your sense of legato, and your ability and willingness to serve the composer by applying the parts of your brain and heart his music requires. Exposure in the pure light of Mozart's genius will illuminate the true state of your musicianship.        

Diversity

These are the remarks I shared this afternoon at the beginning of our departmental concert "Diversity: A Celebration of the Power of Music to Move Us." It took place at the Polk State College Lake Wales Arts Center. The program is listed at the bottom of the post.

Good afternoon. My name is Charles Hulin and I am the chair of the Department of Music at Southeastern University. On behalf of the students and faculty whose performances you are about to hear, I would like to thank the Lake Wales Arts Council and Polk State College for the invitation and the opportunity to be heard.

As you can see from the printed program, the emphasis of our concert is on the power of music to move us as an expression of diversity. As an aspect of cultures around the globe, music reminds us of what we share and of how we differ. Sometimes this delights us, and sometimes it distresses us. With that said, I would like to take a few moments to frame our time together.

   

We come to you as members of an Assemblies of God institution, a Pentecostal school. As such, we hold dear the belief that on the birthday of the Church, diverse peoples were gathered from the far corners of the known world and the Holy Spirit poured out rich gifts upon them. Diversity has been a key element of our faith from its very inception.

Beyond this religious conviction, we celebrate the role diversity has played in making the United States a great nation. Whether we assimilate in the proverbial melting pot or maintain customs of our home cultures as ingredients in a tremendous salad bowl, we continue to fulfill our original motto, “Out of many, one.”

With these things in mind, we will begin today’s concert with music from the first Americans as transcribed and transformed into piano pieces by Arthur Farwell who was a pioneer in the idea of American music. We will follow that prelude with a series of songs that spans cultures and continents while witnessing to universal experiences of love. We will conclude our first half with fresh sounds of percussion that have potential to lead us beyond the words that sometimes limit our thinking.

After intermission, we will shift our focus to the sounds of strings with a work which the Czech composer, Antonin Dvorak, dedicated to his own country. Then, we will return to American soil as my friend and colleague, Emile Hawkins, recites words of Martin Luther King, words that are relevant to all of us since, as author Chris Sunami writes, “King . . . saved the nation as a whole . . . (by charting) a peaceful way forward from an intolerable situation (that was) descending into violence.” I invite you to reconsider that peaceful way forward as you listen to the musical reflection that follows, a reflection based on the spiritual “Deep River.”

Finally, we will turn to the quintessential American musical style.  It was here in the complexity of our social landscape that the cultures of Africa and Europe came together to create jazz. That intermingling, that diversity, has changed and invigorated music the world over.  

Thank you again for this opportunity. It is our prayer that you are inspired by these musical offerings.

                       Diversity - A Celebration of the Power of Music to Move Us

Impressions of the Wa-Wan Ceremony of the Omahas                  Arthur Farwell

            Receiving the Messenger

            Raising the Pipes                                                                              

Allqamari Kanki!                                                                                  Quechua Song

The singer compares her love to a dove.

Amor . . . Dolor                                                     Rosa Mercedes Ayarza de Morales

The brokenhearted singer sends her love away.

“Lenski’s Aria” from Eugene Onegin                                            Pyotr Tchaikovsky

Of the eve of duel, Lenski sings to his wife of their life together.

  

Red Bean Song                                                                                            Xue’an Liu

The singer considers a token of love.

Under the Silver Moonlight                                                            Chinese Folk Song

The singer wonders where her love is hiding.

“Sevillana” from Don Cesar de Bazan                                                 Jules Massenet

Maritana, a street singer, celebrates the beauty of Seville.

  

Pure Imagination                                                  Leslie Bricusse & Anthony Newley                                                                                                      Alex Stopa, arranger

Gymnopédie No. 1                                                                                        Erik Satie

(vibraphone)

INTERMISSION 

Quintet in G major, Op. 77                                                                 Antonin Dvorak

            Allegro con fuoco

“I Have a Dream” Speech                                   Words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Psalm of Brotherhood                                                                            Charles Hulin

A musical memorial to King, based on the spiritual, “Deep River.”

Jazz Selections                                                  Southeastern University Jazz Combo

                              Take the A Train, My Funny Valentine, St. Thomas

First Beethoven

Every classical music blogger ought to write at least one Beethoven post a year. This is mine.

For fun, I did a search of my blog and discovered that I've managed to write several most years since 2008. The only exception was 2010 when I appear not to have mentioned Beethoven at all although I did lots of blogging.

Here's the series of those Beethoven posts, just in case someone (other than me) wants to peruse them.

Last week, I had the great privilege of introducing a piano student to the world of playing Beethoven. This excellent student had not yet played any Beethoven and wanted to. Opus 109 had appealed to her but we agreed it probably wasn't the best first Beethoven work to try to play.

Our discussion of Beethoven turned to the attitude with which it should be performed. In general, the pianist needs to realize that this music comes from an overall  environment of struggle and effort that gives it its strength. In addition, it should engender a mood of profound reflection, deep understanding, and sympathy typical of German Romanticism.

Its greatness is not primarily in the beauty of its melodies, the novelty of its harmonies, or the compelling quality of its rhythms. No, as Bernstein put it, its greatness springs from its sense of inevitability.

This is not to say that Beethoven was not a fine melodist, a harmonic genius, or a composer of highly propulsive gestures. All those things are true, but they are so well-integrated into the intention of the music that they rarely draw attention to themselves.

Indeed, Beethoven's music strikes us as having only one way of existing and that is as he composed it. The lines are so incisive and the textures so clear that there's never a moment when the listener can really imagine an equally likely alternative path for the music to follow. (A particularly muddily textured passage by Arthur Farwell was also on the music rack as we discussed the first two pages of Beethoven's "Pastorale" Sonata. We could both imagine several other options for Farwell's measures - measures that Beethoven would never had written.)

As Dr. Falby taught back at Peabody, Beethoven's music is incredibly end-oriented. From its first note, it lets us know it's on its way to its ending. At any moment in the music, you can, without question, tell which way it's going and how far it is to home. This focus, which is so very western, makes the music singularly arresting and affecting, and it powered Beethoven's works to the very highest ranks of the canon.

Spiritus

Hands are a bit tired and a concert is coming
but I want to get these thoughts out tonight.

Spiritus -
our trio's name.
A good name for a trio
and a trio at a Pentecostal school in particular.

Why?

Our music and our faith are conversations.
We listen for each other
and for the Spirit.

That said,
I now consider music -
that so-called "universal language."

In all honesty,
music has some of the aspects of language
and lacks some of the others.

Within a given culture,
it communicates some things pretty well.
Adverbs,
for instance,
but it's not so good at nouns.

Really,
music is universal like language is universal.
We all have some.

But it's no Esperanto.

And as it turns out,
neither is Esperanto.

Last Saturday,
we played our program for the first time.
The evening's masterwork:
Mendelssohn C Minor. 

I was well-behaved.
Basically,
I whispered politely
so my very fine string colleagues could converse unimpeded.

Whispering in this context is pretty good.
It says you listen.
It says you embrace being part of a community.

Whispering is also tricky.
You have to always listen for the cello.
And it helps if your violinist is careful not to get too quiet.

You have to keep decrescendoing.
You have to find opportunities to decrease,
opportunities you would never notice in solo playing.

And you have to pedal carefully.

Better said,
you mostly have to not pedal.

When you do pedal,
you have to pedal creatively.
Add just a bit when you want a swell
but don't play louder with your hands.
Or hold the notes longer in your left hand
but play the right hand staccato
for a combination of clarity and sustaining.
(In that situation,
your left hand is the pedal.)
Or pedal short segments after beats
to tie things together without building up lots of sound
so your colleagues won't be drowned.

Next time around (Monday night)
I want to contribute a bit more.
Mendelssohn deserves it
and I would like it.

In that music "speaks" to us,
it is a language.

And we can always learn to speak it better.

I have a heart language.
I'm speaking it when I play my own compositions.
I don't have many questions about how they should be played.
And if I do,
it's probably that I haven't yet made up my mind
about how I want something to sound.

I've also explored that big language group "classical" for a long time.
A lot of its words and phrases feel almost as familiar as a mother tongue.

But it is,
as I just said,
a big language group.

In Brahmsese and Schumannian and Mendelssohnglish
the same sounds are employed in different ways
implying subtle differences of meaning.

As students
and professionals
we spend a lot of time learning vocabulary lists:
the right notes and effective technique.

Even if we master those,
we're not yet dealing with grammar.

Grammar involves functions and purposes:
What goes with what?
What's the trajectory of the line?
Is this a beginning or an ending,
a fulfillment of expectations or a surprise?
Is excitement building or is energy waning?
And to all of the above  - why and how?

Here's where music theory meets the road.
Analysis lets you know all of these things.
Once you have some good ideas about them,
your performances are likely to make sense.
You'll be speaking the language
and you'll be understood.

But there will still be tell-tale signs
that you're not a native speaker.

A funny accent always lets people know
you're not from around here.

Perhaps your accent adds a bit of charm,
but you'll still be pegged as an outsider.

Most likely,
for the sake of some sort of authenticity,
you'll want to learn to inflect the sounds
with a greater sensitivity to the richness of the language.

How do you do that?

You listen a lot.
You listen as you practice.
And you listen to your instincts
as you listen to what's coming from the instrument.

You'll discover that
you're doing the wrong things
or too much of the right things.

But with lots of time and attention,
you'll find lovely ways of shaping the music
that reveal its true grace and joy.

That's what I want.









 

"Trouvering"

We composers and teachers of composition do well to understand ourselves as trouveres. "Trouvere" is one of the oldest words for "composer" and I think, at its root, it tells us more about what we do than our word "composer."

The newer word "composer" tends to wash over us as simply meaning someone who writes music. We add to that whatever mental images or baggage our individual knowledge of composers brings along with it.

However, the word "composer" actually has layers suggesting one who arranges things into a whole. That already speaks much more of the real composing process. We are almost always assembling and organizing. That's what our creating involves. We never make something from nothing and the most exalted composers in the classical tradition - Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven - never seem to have created so much as a new chord.  Instead, their monumental compositional efforts consisted of profoundly moving, ingenious new applications of what they inherited.

"Trouvering" (my word), on the other hand, addresses something even more fundamental. It references an earlier phase in the compositional process or at least a more basic disposition of those who excel at the discipline of composition. The etymology of "trouvere" involves an Old French word which also means "to find."

To me, this information is very liberating. It is also very grounding. It cuts through all of the romanticizing, all of the agendas and personalities, and all of the hyping accretions that paralyze us when we start down a creative path. Behind their studio doors, composers are trying to find things: arresting sounds, fresh juxtapositions, compelling lines . . . They are all there to be found, and we're looking for them.

Until you realize you are on such a search, the process can be frustrating, to say the least. Imagine a toddler alone on the edge of a great wood. This little one has no concept of path or thicket, clearing or stream, let alone county line or the ocean beyond all of it. The grasp and ability to differentiate are not yet developed enough even to be overwhelmed. Instead, there is a nebulous lost-ness and probably a panic if a trusted hand is not felt soon.

The beginning composer might be good at finding things intuitively or at least at knowing where things are in the immediate setting. Another might have a knack for grasping big shapes but have no sense of how to fill them. Whatever the case, there must always be work for the teacher of composing to do along the lines of trouvering. The student simply hasn't spent the time on these paths that the teacher has. And so the teacher can move the process along for the student by pointing out possible ways forward. Then, the student can respond, "That's what I was looking for." or, "No, that's not quite what I'm hearing on the inside."

As I was looking around for things at the keyboard last night (improvising), I caught myself in that same old unhelpful and unrealistic dialog against which I am constantly campaigning in the lives of others. My fingers found their way over some bi-tonal things that were reminiscent of Prokofiev. "Ah!" I thought, "I could write something using those sorts of sounds." And then I said the following to myself, but I didn't put it into words until now. It was more of a feeling. If I had "languaged" it, I would have immediately realized how stupidly I was short-circuiting my own creative process. "But the music in which the mature Prokofiev uses these materials is so much better than what I can imagine myself making up off-the-cuff that there's really no point for me to even try to compose."

Obviously, I need to remember that I'm a trouvere and a composer. Keeping that perspective allows me to enjoy the processes of seeking, finding, and arranging into a whole.

Articulating Life

If you’re like me, you’re probably leading your life somewhere between the unreality of multi-tasking and the impracticality of single-tasking. Due to cultural demands, we are unable to totally single-task, and we are constantly, often unwittingly, drawn into attempts at multi-tasking that seem to have some bad side effects.

Perhaps we musicians have something to offer this personally challenging scenario and potential step in the evolution of the human race.

In music, as in life, we deal with numerous layers of happenings that are somehow coordinated and contain any amount of details of varying natures and significance. Raising our consciousness of the presence and functions of these elements can greatly enhance our performances.

When doing the discipline of music, we regularly and comfortably handle that range of organizations within a rich overall texture. How do we keep those layers enlivened and purposefully unified? We practice the art of articulation.

In one way of thinking, articulation determines everything in music. Our sense of phrases is created by various articulations, and phrasing is the name of the game if you want to be a clear, elegant, and moving player. So I am hopeful that processing the activities of one’s life through the concept of articulation might provide some wisdom for leading life with clarity and meaning.

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We like to play and live in long legato phrases. Those phrases and that articulation provide concentration and continuity. I bet they really warm up the brain and soul like extended periods of true single-tasking. My hope for you and for me is that we spend most of our time moving along those strong lines.

But to phrase well, we need to be aware of many aspects of the phrase at hand.

 How long does it last?

How do we need to prepare for it?

What is its shape and how wide is its range?

At what points does it require more energy and at what points less?

What will be the impact after the fact?

Many times, we need to engage with a series of phrases as a more macro-unit. And there are even bigger projects that happen in stages over days or whole periods in our lives.  

Some projects are so big that they need to be laid out like a musical form. We need a schedule or an outline of what is to be achieved and when – a score.

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While we’re traveling with the overall flow of phrases and groups of phrases - the flow of life - lovely nuances come along that we can express well if we recognize and understand them.

There are the staccato moments: social media posts that give friends a glimpse of how we’re phrasing right then, quick phone calls than lend a bounce for a second, or thank you notes that incisively assert spiritual realities . . .

Then there are accents. Conversations in which we engage with real personal investment are one of my favorite types of emphatic gestures. Such accents are even nicer when they come in a syncopated way like an unexpected talk in the hallway that turns to profound things and gives both participants goose bumps and a new perspective.

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Maintaining harmonic support is an ongoing concern in a rich texture. It usually doesn’t work to drop the chords suddenly and leave the melody out there alone.

There are lots of background activities that support our phrasing: labor in the practice room, spiritual study, prayer, getting rest and basic nutrition, and all the behind-the-scenes work that gives things a good chance to go well and stay healthy.

And then there are those end-of-the-day activities that don’t need a lot of mental engagement but do require repetition. Musicians save physical drill for the end of the practice day when attention is waning. In life, there are activities like that - physical exercise, for instance – activities that only really benefit us when we return to them regularly.

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As we mature, we learn to recognize and articulate more and more large-scale organizations. Good mentors help us with this. We become tuned-in to multiple collections of phrases which, along with their harmonic support, make their way to great climaxes before subsiding in staves of diminished activity. Knowledge of these meta-progressions has implications for all the local level details. Those powerful events and major turning points require preparation and great attention over a sustained time so as to arise most profoundly from their contexts.

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I wonder if it might not even be useful to see the phrases of one’s life, or at least of one’s year, as a work to be composed and then played. It’s bound to be some sort of multi-movement work and there will probably be aspects of sonata to it. How wonderful to settle into singing our lyrical slow movement or to dance our year’s refreshing minuet!

And then there’s return of material - sometimes wonderful, sometimes frustrating - but that’s how we learn.

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When we are looking to interpret a year or a life, we are seeking to see and inflect the full array and meaning of its passages.

At some points, a leggiero touch is required and the material is communicated in mysterious fragments because those for whom we play are afraid to hear a full loving melody.

Other times, we must move slowly through repeated motives as the tune is hard to learn.

We discern the importance of slurring, of connecting certain moments to others and certain people to others.

We develop ease with tapering and dovetailing as we listen sensitively at transitions, transitions that require gentleness because things are tenuous.

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In all of this, we are striving to be the best musicians we can be and the best livers of life we can be. To do so, we need to keep asking questions about how what we’re playing relates to the ensemble.

Which parts are most important?

How do the parts relate?

Who has the main melody?

Should it be a solo?

What’s the best balance of our part with the others?

And what needs to crescendo, decrescendo, accelerando, ritenuto?

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In the context of the whole, our own music means so much more. There are beautiful phrases we want extended, and sometimes they are. But many times a cadence is needed. Along the way, we do well to place a tenuto on special happenings, arriving with great intention and lingering a bit afterwards to feel their full effect. Some of those special happenings turn out to be true structural tones that define us and the shape of our music from the deepest level: graduations, conversions, marriages, births, deaths . . .

Sometimes we modulate, smoothly or not. Sometimes there’s an incursion of a totally unfamiliar type of music. And sometimes we have to suspend all thought for articulation as we struggle to keep up with the rhythms as we’re forced to sight-read through some crisis in our lives. There are even situations in which the stakes are so high and the need for singular focus is so great that we must, for a time, truly perform our lives. Our audience depends on us.

But at the beginning and the end, and at a few resting points in-between, there is the tonic.