Featuring: Jack B. and Bark M.
One of the most important international competitions for young (ages 16 to 29) violinists takes place in the United States every four years. (The other top-tier classical-music competitions that include violinists, Moscow’s International Tchaikovsky and Belgium’s Queen Elizabeth, also run on four-year cycles.) While one might expect the US entry on that list to be hosted in California or New York, the venue is: Indianapolis, of 500-mile auto-race fame—and for excellent reasons.
This article originally appeared at The Tannhauser Gate — JB
Open Goldberg Variations, Werner Schweer, editor.
Listening to “happy” music can make one feel happier. However, instead of always making people feel worse, listening to sad music often brings on a state of “paradoxical pleasure.”
I am not saying that listening to sad music in and of itself makes people happier. What I am saying is that listening to sad music can evoke a sequence of very complex emotions. Furthermore, many people regard experiencing that kind of a cascade of metamorphosing emotions as “pleasurable.” (Or perhaps, just as a relief.)
The somewhat waffle-like language employed above is in recognition of the fact that many people experience the same music in different ways. By the way, the sequence of emotions Shock/Disbelief/Anger/Despair formerly was called The Four Stages of Saab Ownership. “What do you mean, my engine’s harmonic balancer was held on with glue?”
I think whether the precise emotional mechanism (and what a silly word “mechanism” is to use, in this context) is transference or catharsis or a feeling of empathy will just have to remain a mystery of the human soul. But from the earliest times, serious thinkers (from Aristotle to Schopenhauer) have always recognized that the power of sad music (and also of literature and drama) does not lie in its merely making people feel sadder than they had been.
A recent BBC Culture article asks whether data diving can “reveal” the “Saddest Number One Song Ever.” I think that that article itself reveals the multiple, perhaps even fatal, limitations of such an approach.
If I had to pick one song known to me as the saddest ever (which avoids the major problems associated with judging the quality and the qualities of songs by things like Billboard charts or Grammys), that would be the “Aria” from the Goldberg Variations. The Goldberg Variations might not have words, but right at the top of the score it says “Song” (albeit in Italian).
Song samples and more pondering, after the jump. Continue Reading →
This piece originally appeared at The Tannhauser Gate — JB
I think that the assertion that the Nobel Prize in Literature is essentially silly (and therefore, we are fools for taking it seriously) has something to be said for it. (Those happen to be the positions of the British novelist and translator Tim Parks.)
Not one of: James Joyce, Tolstoy, Ibsen, Henry James, Robert Graves, Graham Greene, Mark Twain, Nabokov and Chekhov made the cut. But strange omissions compete with strange awardings—John Steinbeck “got the gong” (a slang term for a large medallion), yet James Joyce did not? Furthermore, the requirement that a candidate must be alive to receive the prize meant that late-blooming (or posthumously published) authors such as Kafka, Proust, Calvino, and Mandelstam could not even be considered.
Still and all, there are a few unimpeachable selections (Bob Dylan, in my opinion, is most definitely not among them).
In my opinion, Yeats, T.S. Eliot, Solzhenitsyn, Faulkner, and Hermann Hesse all deserved the money and the medal. I even think that Sigrid Undset (who?) was a deserving recipient. Undset’s massive (1400 pages) Medieval trilogy Kristin Lavransdatter should be much better known. I am tempted to say that if you loved The Lord of the Rings, you should try Kristin Lavransdatter. (In the period when she was “working up to” Kristin Lavransdatter, Undset had published a Norwegian translation of the Arthurian legends.)
For what all this has to do with Gidon Kremer and Astor Piazzolla, please click on the jump link. Continue Reading →
David Wilson, assembling a WAMM loudspeaker, 1986. Courtesy of Wilson Audio.
In Chicago in 1972, Peter McGrath was holding down a part-time job in a stereo store, while he pursued his graduate studies in fine art.
For those who were not alive and aware at the time, the early 1970s witnessed the dawning of the second Golden Age of Hi-Fi. The first Golden Age encompassed the late 1940s through early 1960s. Pioneering companies included Fisher, McIntosh Laboratory, and Marantz (electronics); Klipsch (horn loudspeakers); QUAD (electrostatic loudspeakers, and electronics); and Acoustic Research (acoustic-suspension loudspeakers, and turntables). The great hi-fi companies of the 1950s established the component stereo system (consisting of a turntable and sometimes a tuner or reel-to-reel tape deck, vacuum-tube amplification, and loudspeakers) as a vital part of what was understood to be “the good life.”
I think it is tremendously important to point out that although hi-fi started out as a hands-on hobby for technically-inclined males, by the late 1950s, high-quality music playback in the home via stereo components was almost universally regarded as something to aspire to—even if in many cases, people had to settle for suitcase stereos or the massive pieces of furniture called console stereos. Going back and reading general-circulation magazines of the 1950s (as well as male-oriented magazines such as Esquire and Playboy), one is struck by the prevalence of advertisements for hi-fi components and loudspeakers, as well as for “culturally improving” book and record clubs.
More context, backstory, and appreciations of David A. Wilson, after the jump link. Continue Reading →
(This piece originally appeared on The Tannhauser Gate — JB)
The infosphere is fairly crackling with the news that the current incarnation of the musical ensemble Fairport Convention Fleetwood Mac has notified one of its elderly members that his services will not be required for their upcoming world tour. More than 40 years later, Fleetwood Mac Drama still grabs headlines.
My favorite story about Fleetwood Mac is that during the Narcissistically tumultuous (my words, not theirs) recording of their 1977 mega-album Rumours, the two remaining founding members of the band (Mick Fleetwood and John McVie) repaired to the recording studio’s parking lot to get a breath of fresh air. One of these two gentlemen, not at all at peace with the way things were then developing (at the time, the tattered remnants of the original band were being either re-energized or supplanted by a pair of newcomers), said (or perhaps it is more accurate to write, “whined”) to the other,
“You know, we used to be a blues band.”
To which the other replied, “Yeah. But now, we’re rich.”
(That riposte refers to the fact that while the group was recording Rumours, their most-recently-released recording Fleetwood Mac, which was the first album with newcomers Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, was topping the charts and already throwing off so much cash that the previously hardscrabble members of the band were buying houses in Los Angeles. But: A blues record, Fleetwood Mac was not.)
That exchange says a lot about the endgame of British popular music’s fascination with American blues music.
Intriguing history, and sound bytes, after the jump link. Continue Reading →
In response to “What Would You Like To See Here?” I’ve decided to re-post something from my old blog. It’s a bit of a jazz primer for those of you who said you’d like more music recommendations. I’ve added some bonus content—the above video is some advanced content from the the great Kenny Garrett for those of you who want more than the introductory music in the post. More of this to come if you like it—Bark
Jazz currently makes up less than three percent of all record sales, and that’s probably a generous number—I imagine that is probably much less than that when all forms of music sales are taken in account. As a Gen Xer who’s been a fan of Jazz for over twenty five years, I wish I understood a bit more about why Jazz is so unloved by people of my generation and younger.
There are countless articles on the internet that have been written by Jazz lovers, trying to explain to the uninitated why they should start listening to Jazz. I have never found any of these to be particularly helpful. They set out to introduce people to Jazz by giving a list of classic recordings that people should go out and listen to.
Well, there are a few problems with that. First of all, the classic recordings are just that—classics. Nobody who loves Jazz doubts that Kind of Blue or Giant Steps are great records, but they’re pretty inaccessible to the untrained ear. Kind of Blue, for example, is based on modal harmonies with the purpose of allowing the musicians to stretch out without being constrained by traditional vertical chord structures. Fascinating and revolutionary, yes, but interesting to the novice? No.
Secondly, they’re written by people who don’t listen to popular music. Like, not never. So how would they know what would be interesting to a person who enjoys Imagine Dragons or Katy Perry?
Therefore, I find it to be my moral obligation to try to create a sampling of music that the popular music fan might find interesting enough that he or she would actually listen to the whole thing—sort of a gateway drug to Jazz, if you will. I encourage you to listen to just a little bit of the selections I’ve picked out, and tell me in the comments below what your reaction is. Continue Reading →
I think just about everybody who reads Riverside Green is aware that I majored in Music in school—more specifically, I majored in Jazz Performance. When I was in school, the best textbooks I had were actually compact discs. I scrimped and saved from my part-time job to buy used CDs from “Used Kids Records” on High Street for anywhere from $5-7 apiece—new CDs were out of the question, financially. It was thanks to Used Kids that I learned about off-the-radar saxophonists like Mark Turner, Teodross Avery, Wessell Anderson, and Tim Warfield. I digested their musical vocabulary, transcribed their solos, and regurgitated my learnings through the bell of my horn.
I’ve spent hundreds and thousands of hours practicing the saxophone, writing music, and performing on stages throughout North America and Europe. I’ve been blessed to share stages with some of the biggest names in music. And, for several years, playing the brass bagpipes was how I (barely) paid the bills.
Which is why I’m incredibly conflicted every time that I open up my Spotify app.
The rumors are true—while cleaning out my bonus room I found my saxophone hidden under a pile of children’s toys. Figured I might as well use it. As a result, I’m playing with the Jeff Jensen Band this weekend at the Slippery Noodle on Friday and Saturday nights. We hit at 9:00 PM and go until 1:30 AM or so. The Noodle is the oldest bar in the great State of Indiana, and it’s located right in downtown Indianapolis on the corner of Meridian and Fourth Streets.
Yes! I’m super excited to announce that I will be playing at The Slippery Noodle Inn in Indianapolis on September 11th and 12th with the Jeff Jensen Band!
Those of you who came over from the dearly departed Bark’s Doghouse (the domain barkm.com has expired, but you can still get there using barkm.wordpress.com if you feel the need) might remember my post about the Jeff Jensen Band. Well, since then, Jeff and the crew have released a new CD, entitled Morose Elephant, which is charting everywhere and contains some gorgeous blues. They completed their first European tour earlier this year, and they’re riding a huge wave of momentum as Jeff has been nominated for the Blues Foundation’s Rising Star award.
Let’s say that you’re a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed eighteen year old, and you LOVE music. In fact, you love music so much that you have decided that you’d like to be a Professor of Music at an Institute of Higher Learning someday. So, you embark on a journey to gain not only an undergraduate degree in Music Performance, but a Masters and Doctorate, as well.
Why would you need all those pieces of paper? Well, that’s what is required of all collegiate Music Professors, even at places like East Tennessee State University or Catawba College.
But let’s say that you are determined, and you know that in order to get one of college teaching jobs, you’re not just going to need a Doctor of Musical Arts degree, you’re going to probably need one from one of the top music schools in America. Why? Well, when you graduate with your third degree, there may be only one or two full-time, tenure-track positions available on your principal instrument in the entire freaking country. Period. You will have to compete with literally hundreds of applicants for every position, all of whom will be fully qualified with doctorates and most of whom will have prior collegiate teaching experience.
So you audition at all of the very top music schools, and you actually get in to one of them—which is tough, because the top music schools only accept about 15-30% percent of all applicants. You decide to double major in performance and education, which is a smart career move, but it means that you’ll need a minimum of five years of college to graduate with both undergraduate degrees. Let’s see how much that’s going to cost you, shall we?