Attitude (FOR OR AGAINST) postmodernism

Dr. Kramer, in his article, seeks to define how music grows and evolves. This is an interesting trick. To demonstrate how music grows through a study of the Western European tradition, his citations of growth through Wagner, Debussy, Mahler, and others, is clear evidence of his narrowed viewpoint. His own study clearly only draws from one tradition, so how can he claim this globalized paradigm?

A discussion of the globalization of music permeates his article, how this generation is exposed to much more and different music than the older generations have been. This leads me to wonder about the localization of music. Globalization has led to localization as an counter movement, particularly in agriculture. This leads one to wonder if the same will be true of music. Will composers seek to revert back to the local idioms of sound? How would they do this and what would they be? Would this be a cultural movement? Composers investigating and pushing the music of their lineage? It will be an interesting process to watch. I don't have any answers, just couldn't help but muse.

Postmodernism in music recalls the western classical tradition. Dr. Kramer seeks to put postmodernism in a box into which everything falls, a music defined as that following what has come before, with certain aesthetic tendencies, listed as such:

   1. is not simply a repudiation of modernism or its continuation, but has aspects of both a break and an extension;

   2. is, on some level and in some way, ironic;

   3. does not respect boundaries between sonorities and procedures of the past and of the present;

   4. challenges barriers between "high" and "low" styles;

   5. shows disdain for the often unquestioned value of structural unity;

   6. questions the mutual exclusivity of elitist and populist values;

   7. avoids totalizing forms (e.g., does not want entire pieces to be tonal or serial or cast in a prescribed formal mold);

   8. considers music not as autonomous but as relevant to cultural, social, and political contexts;

   9. includes quotations of or references to music of many traditions and cultures;

 10. considers technology not only as a way to preserve and transmit music but also as deeply implicated in the production and essence of music;

 11. embraces contradictions;

 12. distrusts binary oppositions;

 13. includes fragmentations and discontinuities;

 14. encompasses pluralism and eclecticism;

 15. presents multiple meanings and multiple temporalities;

 16. locates meaning and even structure in listeners, more than in scores, performances, or composers.

This list seems to encompass very little music, but also seems to exist without frame of reference to time (with the exception of no. 7), and this seems to be a realm in which music has gone since recorded music. Some composers in every period have sought to break the mold, change the system and interact with music in a different way, that's why music grows. Thus, Postmodernism can be defined as that which follows whatever it is that happens to be modern.


Listening this week was also worthy of note.


The Bolcom Songs of Innocence left me confused. After several listenings of the first and third I was still searching for the text itself. Some mix of opera, western twang, and americana, Bolcom does not restrict himself to stay in one cultural or even instrumental norm.

At this point, genres don't matter.  I would as soon evaluate a composer on his own level.  The Songs of Innocence transcend what I expected to hear, I know not why I have expectations at all. I believe the idea here is innocence across cultural boundaries. First the classical tradition as we all know it from our backgrounds. Next comes the innocence from out west in the eyes of a 'little black boy.' This was, by far, the most interesting of the three.

Bolcom's music (so far as I know) is energetic, moving, sensitive, and sometimes even powerful. A composer who can move emotion and thought this much in such a short amount of time deserves attention.  If we consider the point of music being that to stir the soul, then Bolcom succeeds well. Though it does not speak to me specifically, it certainly carries the air of emotionality throughout. 

Foss
The first of the Time Cycle sounded like an aria from Berg's Wozzeck. Quirky and atonal, it never settled. I enjoyed it tremendously. The unexpected chromaticism covered by emotional, even explosive text, accompanied by traditional orchestral instruments. We're late, but for what?

1a. Interlude 1 is quiet, unnerving. This I could really get into. Tense, confident and meticulous, foreboding even. I can't get Wozzeck out of my head, I think I will be listening to t after this blog is finished. After the totalism reading/studying, I think my expectation of this listening was to be more instrumentally varied.

All this traditional instrumentation speaks to me as really intense and unrestrained. Full and powerful, it's unyielding force sets me on edge and focuses my thought patterns and very nearly articulates my thoughts before I fully comprehend them. It makes me feel so lucid, like my teeth are on edge. Music can be the most intense drug, although now I fear I have said too much.
through the next one.

When the Bells Justle. The only problem I have thusfar is not understanding the text. Still, this powerful, intense music really speaks to me. I want to be there, in the seat, watching, playing, experiencing this for myself rather than on a recording. 

Interlude II left me drawing a ______.  The use of silence was much more extreme than most things we listen to as musicians, with 4'33" being an obvious exception. Really the absence here speaks more, anticipating and on edge, the audience quietly waits for these little interludes that come and go quietly for much of the movement. I still don't know what to think of this one, except to say that this is much more of what I anticipated with regard to instrumentation.

Sechzehnter Januar waited and waited to build to nowhere. It was confusing, so I went to investigate.  Sixteenth note January. Maybe that was the timeframe for this movement. It doesn't make any sense yet though.

Interlude III had the same quiet with silences as heard in the Second Interlude, this time, however, the subversive energy expressed in the piano created some sense of tension. Later the clarinet and some percussion joined in this theme, followed by a soaring violin line. This one never seemed to settle though, it just stayed anxious.

O Mensch, gib Acht, it listened like a grand aria, but after a quiet interlude. Without the contrast of something more powerful or at least something different, it just kind of sat. I was expecting so much better after the beginning of this cycle, what a sad finish.

totally totalism

Gordon Four Kings Knight Five

The reading about Gordon made this make more sense, but not really.Why put this together? Chaos for it's own sake does not make art. To say, as Gann does, that: "Few totalist works have surpassed Four Kings in either complexity or clarity." I sincerely hope to be completely untrue. The complexity here at some points becomes too overwhelming to be appreciated by anyone but the performer, an incomprehensible slew of notes to the audience's ear. Four Kings as an archetype for Gordon's brand of music stands out in its complexity, yes, but often the tonally repetitive structure behind the awkward polyrhythmic meters become grating and static. The most enjoyable part for me was the silence that followed my listening.

Adams Dream in White on White

The long tonal nebula to open this piece makes a beautiful way for the harp to be heard, when far too often it becomes eclipsed by the texture surrounding it. My first reaction upon listening was 'how is this totalist?' Gann states totalism carries world or rock percussion textures, the melding of different cultural genres, but for the first five minutes, this is a beautiful, slow orchestral work, string orchestra with a leading harp solo. This would end up being the total makeup of White on White. I wonder if the other white, that is, the white outside of the white keys, refers to Alaskan snowdrifts and the peace that often accompanies them in photography, or rather the plaintive, pensive and peaceful structure of this slow, melismatic work. I do not hear White on White under Gann's definition of totalist. Though J. L. Adams falls into the category, this particular work could have been written by Philip Glass, among others, it does not distinguish Adams as say,

totally totalism.

Polansky scared me on the e-reserves because of it's sheer size, some twenty tracks.   After reading I see very clearly how this fits into totalism, here are a few thoughts upon first listening, unchanged, even with typos. Incomplete thoughts and structure, like the piece, without a wall or filter.

Upon listening, the  
Opening was nice and short, a quiet little piano ditty. Nothing unusual or unexpected here. 
Little Black Dots. Again piano, which made me believe it could be like Duckworth's  Time Curve  Preludes, a piano cycle?
Chorale 1 Ethereal and uncertain, never landing  
After Sobono 1 never found context or a groove, disjunct and inorganic. I really liked it's demented nature. Waltz 1 wasn't a waltz, no meter or structure was evident. Still derived a bit of tonality. 
Unison-Octaves of course was a title for a flourishing, speedy race up and down the piano, it was however, much more true to form than the first waltz. At this point I really believe this would be a piano cycle, doesn't seem to make sense that it would be anything but.  
Choral 2 typo? I'm not sure. Like the first chorale, this was filled with stable,quiet chords, moving as though connected to one another, but how the audience is unsure. It ended?  
Genderan the title conjures up images of Chopin, a character who exists in between the keys. It even sounds a bit like Chopin, without the lyricism and energy.  
Unison followed Genderan as Florestan follows Eusibius. It had moments of Joplin inside as well, a quirky convoluted contextual quandary with the lightest of jokes to finish.  
Waltz II the dances are starting to make me think that Polansky has one leg, or possibly a wooden one. Choral III, faster than before, in more ways than one 
Choral IV quieter and relaxed, and structured so the audience can grasp it.  
Choral V, these seem to represent the shortest of the movements. Still tonal and obscure, I cannot hear how these come together.  
Untitled I, that's a laugh. These feel unconnected, one minute I hear Chopin, the next I am listening to Ives. Why do these all tie together?
Untitled II, there really should be a better name for this. It sounds now like a simplified Rachmaninov piano cadenza, full and flourishing, with driving dark rhythms underlying frantic tunefulness in the high right hand. Very Fast and Loud I assumed would sound like Morton. In fact, it was loud, though fast would not be one of the first words I would use, even in length it surpasses several movements I have heard thusfar.  
Choral VI was pleasurable, complex and quiet, relaxed in it's full tranquility.  
The Hensly Deviations sound like Strauss's Till Eugenspiegels if written for piano, quirky and humorus, with a hint of evil or maybe just good ol' fashioned shenanigans. Like a lame dance, this imprecise tune sounds like a rambling drunkard. 
Quietly, Peacefully, not as quiet, nor as peaceful as any of the six chorales, this sounds like it almost gets going, a prelude to nowhere.
Cengkok and Cada sounds out of place as well, awkward like a man who is a foot taller than everyone else in the room (sorry Brian). It found peace though, a sense of finality and one of the few recognizable cadences of the whole cycle, although it still came without preparation. A driving, if misdirected rhythm, the awkward stage seems to have been the conclusion of the previous movement.  A beautiful ending to close.
Song the last in the cycle, like a jazz ballad, quiet and contemplative. This makes me want to stuff a dollar in the brandy glass on top of his piano before ordering myself three fingers of Black Label.

pun about minimalism

Giteck's Om Shanti

I found this to be a really fascinating work. Quiet and reserved, she has captured an element of tranquility atop curiosity. This pensive section slows to a halt and keeps the listener in a very peaceful place until what I would naturally call the second movement comes in. This upbeat rhythmic section incorporates percussion unheard before into it's texture, a quick spritely but still peaceful and calm movement which seems to be over as quickly as it began. Next she sends the listener into a beautiful, luscious string quartet. This beautiful section concludes and brings the listener into a piano solo that brings us back into the initial mood of ambiance with a little light percussion and a soaring solo without words.

Admittedly, it gets a little long-winded, however, this work is attainable by the laymen and allows real people to hear it, listen to it, without any preemption, and brings the element of the common man back into contemporary music in a way that many contemporary works do not.

Lentz's Crack in the Bell
 
Upon first hearing I had no idea what was going on. With a little more patience and time, I grew to appreciate and expect each change and even looked forward to many of the sounds. I love how it goes from brass chords to synthesizer in the blink of an eye only to come right back to a wind ensemble setting in the flutes a minute later. Incorporating so many different sounds could have been disastrous. In this case, utilizing the rhythmic and tonal similarities through the changes in instrumentation provides a stable point for the listener to jump off of.

Postminimalism takes the minimalist idea of reiterating melody, rhythm, form, whatever, and takes away the slow nature of it, to transform the music into a completely different animal. Differentiating from the minimalists, these composers lose the mathematic method by which they choose what is to come next, and instead rely on artistic intuition. It makes for much more enjoyable listening, that really is more attainable to the common man, and allows the laymen to enjoy without reservation this interesting, if somewhat alien realm.  

White out

Lloyd whitewash's our notions by selling out on his own name. He cashes in on the race card, whiting out his own point of view, coloring it with perceptions of color to paint our perception a ghostly shade of disgusted.

Enough punning?

In any case, Whitesell does evoke images of race to prove a point about minimalism being a reaction to black culture, simplified into matter that can be digested by white people. In reality, does race matter? Using race as an argument for anything in this day and age is a total farce.

He states that the white man is now without race, but that is a matter of simplification rather than specification in our culture. It used to be that in America we were British, Irish, German, etc. Today however, we are all interspersed, rather than saying "I'm 1/4 Irish, 1/8 Finnish, 3/8 British, 1/8 Polish, and the rest is mixed." We simply are European descent. By allowing race to play a role, he is in fact propagating racist stereotypes and ideals.

In the beginning of the article, Whitesell talks about how the energies of Jazz permeate the works of Stravinsky, and Ravel, two composers who knew very little about the ways of Jazz and it's culture. The influence of Jazz no doubt lies within their works, but to say they brought the energies of the genre into their works is a stretch to say the least.

He later uses Cage to make his point, putting in that Cage seeks 'somehow to disempower or jettison the traditional systems of signification of Western musical culture altogether.' Cage never does this! He never seeks to destroy the system as we know it. Often times his notation style even falls into what we consider 'normal.' And yet, he is doing something different. Cage, I think, is challenging the norm of what we say music is, to ask the question "Why is that music better than this?" or "Why cannot sounds be considered music?" Rather than disempower the structure as we know it, Cage seeks for his audience to understand and appreciate sound for what it is.

The biggest hurdle blocking the way for Whitesell's article is the color section. He begins: "The color white often stands for emptiness and colorlessness." In my experience, the most often associated idiom with the color white is purity or virginity. He continues to use this basis, this notion of what white represents to apply the idea to people of European descent as a whole?! This idea being that white culture sees itself as one without characteristic, without prejudice or stereotype as it were. How can he not take into account the fact that through anything, he is looking at his argument through a white lens. If he can use the race issue to propagate his belief, than it can be used to unravel it as well.

If you want to talk about Whiteness in Whitesell, let's look at the racial background of his own sources. From those he quotes from, for example. Throughout our article, Lloyd uses 17 different people for quotations. Of those, 1 is not white, she is African-American. Toni Morrison is quoted to define whiteness in her eyes, she writes: "Whiteness, alone, is mute, meaningless, unfathomabl, pointless, frozen, veiled, dreaded, senseless, implacable." Wait, so black is not veiled, nor dreaded? Children of all races are afraid of the dark, and darkness covers the earth, veils it from our view, for several hours each day! Racism aside, that is science.

Listening to Whitesell drone on about the concept of race permeating minimalism was a real struggle and source of irritation. Lloyds lame lines of logic lulled my lucidity into a lump of lard. A long read to be sure, and in more ways than one.

Avant Garde Rock?

After listening to mainstream music on the radio for years, specifically Rock, I have found myself wondering why they insist on using the same three chords over and over and over, without trying to expand and complicate their tonal pallets.

This week we examine Avant Garde Rock. The Avant Garde title today is joined at the hip with metal more than rock. These groups seek to separate themselves from the pack, and to do something different. Really, I can't hear a difference in the styles between what I know as metal and this though:

In my search, I came upon  Avantgarde-Metal.com, a likely source for my studies. Therein, I read about avant garde metal itself, and took a listen to several different bands, trying to expand my horizons and allow this idiom to impose itself in my mind. What I hear is nothing radical though, not even when venturing outside of the U.S. to find more of the genre:

This is the first video that caught my eye though. Even though it never ventures far from what we know as metal,  it does have a dramatic moment around 2' in, where we have a new beginning of the form of the song.

After listening to Les Discrets, I moved around Europe to Germany, to Todtgelichter. When venturing over to Germany, I expected to hear something along the lines of Rammstein. I was incorrect, however, this was much more tame than I expected from what they deem Avant Garde Metal.  Even their song Begin the End, seemed tame.

In my quest to figure out this genre, I delved a little deeper. I went all the way back to 2008, and found something different, but equally disappointing. After listening to Anaak Nathrakh, Negura Bunget, and others, I began searching for something different. I searched and listened through some Progressive Rock, Folk Metal, and Post-Hardcore, and finally hit upon something that seemed unique and more true to form in terms of the Avant Garde. 

As a genre, it actually sounds fairly unique. Still repetitive at times, Symphonnic Metal at least incorporates some radically different styles. Combining traditional symphonic sounds with metal was a totally unique aural experience. Although I feel that it puts me into my symphonic box, as a hornist, it is the most distant music in the rock world I encountered after quite a bit of searching. I hesitated to dive into it after seeing the title of the genre, but yet, it is a real departure from the norms of other genres which have blended together such already similar styles the point is moot. 


The pioneer of this style seems to be a band called Nightwish. One of the most striking things about this group is the variation in length of some of their musics. Besides Mars Volta, they actually contain some real length.

Interesting anyway, but this turned me to Gothic Metal, a style employing some of the orchestra again, but this time also with the sounds of synthesizers and a little distortion. An interesting topic with a lot of rep to listen to, and virtually no end to groups seeking to distinguish themselves, and in fact falling into the same pits of sounding virtually the same as other groups from mainstream genres nearby.  


So, Avant Garde Rock itself seems a little forward. I will have to read some of my colleagues blogs to find out just how out there these folks get. Really, I was expecting to hear rock groups that took their influence from Christian Wolff or Schoenberg. Still, some different sounds worth exploring.

Very Contemporary

Mingus and Black Saint was pretty cool. He is an artist I know from the Ken Burns Jazz series. The Black Saint doesn't seem to be out of the ordinary in that context. The only unusual thing in this piece was the ostinato in the Trombone being swelled instead of pointed. Pretty standard jazz for the most part, I don't hear anything I am unaccustomed to, nothing unexpected or unusual, given it's improvisatory nature.

Braxton's compositions were the same way. It's jazz, there was nothing surprising here. Reading about his composition 84 for 4 orchestras was really interesting and bizarre. I had never heard of anything like that, and then found an interview of Braxton discussing the work itself

John Zorn and his piece Cobra were by far the most on the edge listening for this set. At first it sounded like a jazz percussion section warming up, and grew to be a mixed, jumbled, intriguing, but also grew to be grating and irritating. The silence and lack of stability or form just did nothing for me. This performance of it particularly pushed me away the longer I listened to it. About the seventh minute it began to have a chance, but really it went right back to being a song without structure or stability, and grew dull. Instead of being pushed away I just grew to stop caring about the work as a whole. By the end I had completely lost interest.

Reading about Gunther Schuller was great! As a composer as well as performer I have studied and know of. Growing up in Coeur d'Alene (yes, no typo) Idaho, right next to Spokane Washington. Mr. Schuller has had a lot of influence in the area, conducting the Spokane Symphony and supporting a lot of Bach and Handel musics. I have played through his etude book for horn, and enjoyed the stories about him getting the principal seat with the Cincinnati Symphony at age 18! As a jazzer, I knew little of him, not even that he worked with Mingus and Dizzy Gillespie.

Jazz is a wonderful form, including the improvisatory nature of music that was lost to the mainstream since the days of Mozart. It's evolution as a truly American art form blending African slave songs with the western European tradition to create an improvisatory, semitonal sound that captivated our country for a century before evolving (devolving?) into rock.

??

Music on a Long Thin Wire was an interesting work. It's focus lies in microtonalities and exploring how sound moves within itself. This piece studied the movement of a synthesized sound between very small intervals and the relationship among the sounds. What a cool idea, but in terms of focusing on that sound for that kind of time, the only  audience this kind of music is likely to have is the academic. The laymen is not going to go out looking for, and doubtfully enjoying this type of music. I liked it, although I get the sense that it would make a better listening were I to move within my space, rather than with headphones on, as I did. I liked it, for all it was without structure. Too interesting to pass up.

Silver Apples of the Moon
Ok, what was that? It had all the elements one would expect of music, tones, rhythm, direction, dynamics even, but what was that? I don't understand why or how one would go about writing music like that. It is beyond me. That being said, I enjoyed it's complexity, as well as it's containment of everything we can classify as 'music.' However, this is not the type of sound I am likely to pursue as a result of the departure from regular and familiar tonality. What an unexpected departure from all I am accustomed to. How fun, though bizarre.

Oliveros' Bye Bye Butterfly is in the same vein as Music on a Long Thin Wire, it's structure played on small sounds to start. By the middle it sounded almost as like sampling of Silver Apples and Thin Wire, slowing to pursue those infinitely small sounds mixed with the rhythms and tones present in Silver Apples. However, it did not incorporate any structural rhythm, it was more effectual, relying on reverberation to make it's point. When the chorus came in, it switched gears entirely! No longer was the audience wandering and wondering, but now was locked into a familiar sound mixed with this otherworldly tonality. Now too, there was rhythm, audible structure! The bookend of the streamlined screech provided Butterfly with a stability and formality befitting any great work. Without this second section of the chorus coming in, it would have flopped as something dreary and dull. However, it came across as a very interesting and complex work.

Overall, Butterfly struck me as peculiar. Striking and independent. Courageous in allowing these two worlds to coexist. Without starting with Thin Wire, I would have been perplexed and lost. Not music I am likely to pursue, Butterfly was very thought provoking, intriguing and complex, but lacked a balance and fulfillment I find coming from tonal music.

Systems of Judgement 1
Sounds like the preface to text and music one would hear in a movie. As though we are standing on a dark road waiting for narration from the main character, or two men to be shouting over the storm. Without structure, the strings and timpani play an ominous role. Something is coming, but whatever it is will not reveal itself just yet.

Systems of Judgement 2
Does not solve anything outright, rather, it decides to beat around the bush and provide more context, more subterfuge. Whatever is happening the listener does not yet know, but rather than building, the second movement seems to only add the siren song and slight moans of the upper strings. Honestly, after the first movement, I expected more, this is a little boring. At the end it does pick up slightly, providing the listener with more to grasp onto, a brighter change for what is coming, but it still just feels like it's building.

Systems of Judgement 3
A complete departure from the second movement, where did we go? Africa? Strange percussion with the piano and natural flute at the beginning pose a question to the listener, more than a statement of purpose. What an interesting direction to take. Just after it begins to become stagnant, Rosenboom adds in what sounds like animal sounds, but pitched and rhythmic. Becomes a little tiring near the end of each section. Like the sustained ideas drag on a little too long before moving on to the next idea or background change or whatever. At this point (as I listen) I find myself wondering if the misspelling of the word Judgment is purposeful or an accident. Somewhere near the end we begin to hear a low voice making nonsensical words, these provide a wonderfully fearful context, melded with the high pitched synth in back gives the impression of a far off scream. A very cool section of this movement. Outside of that section and the opening being such a departure from the previous movement, it was rather dull.

Systems of Judgement 4
This movement seems very ambient, unstructured. I feel like it lacks any structure or motive. How does this fit in with what happened last movement? Although this one sounds as though it actually uses instruments the listener might be familiar with, a series of bells and some light percussion. It starts and stops without a beginning or end. Maybe that's why it's called 'Interrupt'...

Systems of Judgement 5
Begins very softly, contemplative and focused, deliberate but not tense. The celli and basses that enter provide some tension and uncertainty. I like this movement a lot, this quiet intensity rooted in uncertainty is very interesting, So unsettling that I can't quit focusing on it, this could also be due to the plucked string instrument echoing in the background, though occasionally it comes to the front. And then it just ends.

Systems of Judgement 6
More chaos, this music is unyielding. This movement appears to have an accordion as well as the strings and a lot of percussion accompaniment, later I hear horns too. The unstructured nature of these past few movements prompt the sound of deliberate chaos, and I can't think of a better way to describe it. Again it ends without any climax or buildup, leaving the listener wondering and wandering.

Systems of Judgement 7
At this point, the work is becoming enamored with itself, finding a degree of understanding that is too far removed to be coherent. A listener cannot pick up the pieces to decipher the greater meaning that lies within this work. It is academic for it's own sake. It exists without structure and at this point, is nearly grating.

Overall, the work stretches for meaning, for a sense of self. It seems contrived in it's attempt to become something more, but only occasionally. When it does not, however, it still lacks something, some substance or structure is missing. I can't put my finger on it, but something does not sit quite right within this work. I think it is that ominous foreboding quality from the first movements that entice the listener in, without ever coming to a climax or point of arrival.

I imagine that with any given order any of the listenings would be completely different. Almost like concert programming, the programmer (listener in our case) must be aware that anything could happen based on the order of the listenings. I could get a completely different opinion and effect of the pieces based around the order of the listenings.