Music vs. Theater

There comes a time in one’s life (usually around junior year of high school) when you have to answer the question, “What do you want to do with your life?” More often, this question comes in the form of “What colleges are you looking into?” and “Have you picked a major yet?”. But the underlying issue remains “Now that you’re 16, what activity do you plan on pursuing for the next 50 years?”

For me the answer was obvious. I had been studying music intensely since second grade. I had been performing in musicals since third grade (including a professional regional production). My listening habits, which had started with Bernstein and Sondheim in elementary school, had progressed through Gershwin, Stravinsky, and Bartok in high school. Simple. I was going to be a composer of orchestral and musical theater works.

That is, until my piano teacher talked some sense into me.

Read the rest of this entry →

I’m excited to announce that on April 23rd several of my new pieces will be premiered in San Francisco in an evening length concert dedicated to my work as a composer. A Brief History of Love and Poetry is a song cycle I composed late last year for baritone and mezzo soprano. It’s a setting of five love poems spanning a 150 year period, each expressing a different aspect of human relationships. Cary Ann Rosko and Robert Stafford will be singing with Keisuke Nakagoshi on piano.

In addition to the song cycle, there will be the first public performance of my string quartet, excerpts of my upcoming opera Failing That, and excerpts from the opera adaptation of Alice in Wonderland I wrote for Cinnabar Theater. A casual reception with snacks and drinks will follow.

For more information, please visit this page:

A Brief History of Love and Poetry

Spontaneous co-location

Those of you following my twitter feed know that I’m just returning to SF after a whirlwind trip to NYC. I was lured out there by the Park Avenue Armory‘s Tune-In Festival which was curated by new music super-group eighth blackbird. As previously reported, back in 1989 I was a heartbeat away the presidency (of the Interlochen Arts Academy student council). Fortunately, president Matt Duvall made it through the year unscathed, so not only were my megalomaniacal tendencies kept in check, Read the rest of this entry →

Can you spot the MacArthur genius?

John Adams titled his work “My Father Knew Charles Ives” based on a hunch that had his father ever actually met the groundbreaking American composer, their similar dispositions and interests would have made them fast friends. This little anecdote differs from Adams’ in two points.  First, my father, a lifelong athlete and track coach couldn’t be more different than the groudbreaking American modernist Milton Babbitt, one of the most significant American composers of the century.  And second, it actually happened. Read the rest of this entry →

It’s a new song from the Richter Scales!

Followers of my blog are familiar with how my good friend Mark Casey surprised me on my last birthday with a premiere performance of my string quartet.  This year I managed to surprise him with an original song based on his life as the only person in his zip code who would dare make a case for Sarah Palin occupying a national office (and have enough command of the facts to make you buy it.  For a few minutes at least.)

Although the topic of the song was set from the beginning, the structure was much less clear.  The original title was “The Nicest Republican You’ll Ever Know” with the vague concept of a Republican having a hard time getting a date in San Francisco, but I couldn’t quite get a full song out of it. I had a lot of gags, but no arc, no strong chorus, no song. Then, while driving back from LA (where our previous video, I Got Mail, was playing at the Feel Good Film Festival) I had the idea that this would work well as an barbershop quartet. Read the rest of this entry →

I’ve come to the realization that 80% of the stress I’ve ever experienced has come from watching baseball. Specifically post season baseball. Which is equal parts a commentary on how little stress I have in my normal life and how stressful it is for me to watch baseball when something’s on the line.

So yeah. This is a very stressful time in my life.  The SF Giants are one win away from taking the National League pennant and I’m utterly distracted. I was useless at Richter Scale rehearsal last night, my mind was consumed by the one run deficit going into the eighth inning. It’s hard to lead a rehearsal while trying to figure out how to sneak in a glance at your iPhone for an update.

At the San Francisco Opera just the night before, as soon as Butterfly and Pinkerton retreated to their folding house I whipped out the iPhone to see who won.   Read the rest of this entry →

Hey Look! We won! (Goofy beard courtesy of Burning Man)

Phew. Three weeks since my last post, but definitely three busy, busy weeks. Most of that time was spent in the high desert of Nevada being deeply involved with the Burning Man arts festival. It was equal parts exhausting and exhilarating, as always, and the full details of what transpired out there is largely outside of the scope of this blog (although I am planting a nugget of an idea for a future large scale Burning Man project with a certain high profile new music ensemble).

Last weekend was spent at the DC Shorts Film Festival, and thanks to all of you who went and voted for I Got Mail as the best original song, we won! I can now be called an “award winning composer” (since I Got Mail’s previous mention as “runner up for a cappella comedy song of the year” doesn’t quite count).

The DC Shorts festival is a wonderful festival. Unlike many other festivals (where they give you a free ticket to your screening and then charge you for little things like the opening night party and the closing awards ceremony), it’s truly designed with the filmmakers in mind. Founder Jon Gann is a filmmaker himself and set out to create a festival that filmmakers would want to attend, and by all accounts he has succeeded. Little things, like making sure that the credentials indicate clearly who the filmmakers are so you know who you’re talking to when you meet them in line at the many parties, makes networking and socializing easy.

The films themselves are also very strong, and that’s not something to take for granted. I saw three of the nine possible screenings and while not every film was precisely to my taste (Tarantino knock-offs in particular turn me off pretty quickly, and for some reason every time a poverty stricken minority youth has a beloved dog, you just know the dog’s going to bite it before the end credits) I had a hard time choosing just three for the audience choice award.

So, in no particular order, here are films that stuck with me:

Delmer Builds A Machine
Very short and very awesome. May be my favorite film of the festival.

The Moon Bird
Gorgeously surreal animation. Story gets a bit drawn out (creepy thing makes little girl scream and run away, repeat until finished) but the look makes up for it. One part Brothers Quay, one part Studio AKA.

Touch
A triumph of casting. Real actors make a difference and this short demonstrates why.

The Incident at Tower 37
I saw this at the Sonoma Film Festival as well, and was impressed even before I realized who the director was (Chris Perry is an old friend of mine from the computer graphics industry). It’s thoughtful and lovely and stops just shy of being heavy handed. Quite an achievement for a film made primarily by students.

Manual Practico del Amigo Imaginario (The Imaginary Friend Practical Manual)
Laugh out loud funny mockumentary from Spain about an imaginary friend sharing tips on how to avoid obsolescence as their humans get older. Features a convention hall filled with a bizarre conglomeration of friends, including a giant Burt head, flower costumes, and… Alf? Why is there a full sized Alf costume in Spain?

Expiration
Very funny (and again, very short) short that got unfairly overlooked for the awards. It’s very well conceived and executed.

Rita
Haunting and beautiful. About three quarters through I decided I hated it, only to decide I loved it in the last few minutes. Now I want to see it again.

Marius Borodine
Another very funny mockumentary. For a brief moment, it seemed like there was a French film maker with a sense of humor, but then we realized that it was a French-Canadian film, and all was right with the world again.

Enter the Beard
Audience and filmmaker favorite, this is all flavors of charming. You just can’t go wrong with a bunch of goofy costumes and beards in Alaska. What’s not to like?

It’s non-stop festival here in my life. First the Cabrillo Festival of New Music, then the Feel Good Film Festival, than three weeks (!) of the Burning Man festival, and then out to DC for the DC Shorts Festival.

Why the film festivals? I Got Mail, the video that my wife made for my a cappella group, is being shown at a few festivals around the country.

And this is where you come in…

DC Shorts is having an online competition for “Best Original Song”. And I need YOU to help make that possible. Go over to the DC Shorts web site and take a listen. I think you’ll find that my song (down at the bottom of the page, urg) compares quite well. If you agree, please vote for it. I’d be much obliged…

VOTE!

I wrote last week lamenting how Guitar Hero provides a quick fix that discourages people from actually learning how to play an instrument (although as several friends have pointed out, the new Rock Band 3 that is scheduled to ship this winter includes a real Fender guitar and pro mode that matches ALL the real notes!)

On the other hand, it certainly exposes a generation to music that they may never have paid attention to otherwise, and in such an interactive and engaging way that it actually becomes their music. I’m thrilled that my younger cousins have been exposed to the staples of my college experience Jane’s Addiction, Nirvana, and Nine Inch Nails, as well as the staples of my high school experience The Beatles, The Who, and The Rolling Stones.

But that’s only part of my youth.  What about the rest of my high school experience, The Stravinsky, The Bartok, and The Schoenberg?

While I don’t expect to see a Guitar Hero version of Bartok’s String Quartets or Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex any time soon, why not a Guitar Hero version of Reich’s Electric Counterpoint?

It turns out that the new music supergroup Bang On A Can felt similarly.  As covered on Amanda Ameer’s blog Life’s A Pitch, there are now three Rock Band tracks available so you can play along with the polyrhythmic minimalist supergroup and become a Modern Music Hero.

Yo Shakespere – Michael Gordon

Shadowbang – Evan Ziporyn

Pretty catch stuff,. If only it was notated so you could keep track of the downbeat it would be a lot easier to play. This scrolling note thing is just a pain in the butt.

The mechanism of Rock Band seems to lend itself well to minimalism. Serial work may not be quite as effective. You can only generate so much material out of five-tone rows…

I really dig Guitar Hero. From the first time I picked up a four buttoned plastic guitar and jammed out to We Got The Beat at the 2007 SIGGRAPH computer graphics conference I was hooked. Having a reasonable amount of musical aptitude, I took to it pretty quickly.  I can usually sight read songs at the hard level without failing (on guitar at least, drums are a bit harder for me). I’m pretty sure I’d be able to get through expert, if only there was a display mode that showed real rhythmic notation (e.g. eighth notes and quarter notes) instead of the scrolling piano roll that makes it hard to keep track of the beat.

But is Guitar Hero good for music?

Growing up I was magnetically attracted to music. My dad was an athletic director for a high school and every autumn weekend I would go with him to the football games.  I never paid attention to the games, I just wanted to hear the marching band play. There’s a picture of me at the age of 3 sitting inside a sousaphone, trying to blow into a mouthpiece about half the size of my face.

As soon as I was old enough, I started learning how to actually participate in music.  First violin, then trumpet, and then (much later) piano.  I would spend countless hours practicing so I could play some role however small, in creating the ensemble sounds that I found so enrapturing. Sitting in a band or orchestra, playing the right notes at the right time, contributing my voice to something greater than the sum of it’s parts remains a deeply enriching experience.

But the funny thing is, these days, when I play Guitar Hero, I feel that same musical itch scratched to a surprising extent. It really FEELS like I’m playing that music, like I’m a great guitar player. I find myself wondering, if I could have had this semi-instant gratification, the illusion that I’m creating music when I was 10 or 11, would I have bothered spending those countless hours learning how to be at best a middling trumpet player? Or would I have spent those hours learning how to press the right buttons on the Guitar Hero controller at the right time, rewarded by the perfect strains of The Who or Led Zeppelin from my speakers.  To be sure Guitar Hero does require a real level of expertise, but with the possible exception of the coordination needed for the drum part, that skill doesn’t translate into anything involving the actual creation of music.

Perhaps Guitar Hero will end up being a kind of gateway, encouraging kids to eventually graduate from the plastic toggle switch to a real guitar. I’m not so sure. A friend of mine who is a pretty accomplished guitarist often says that the only way to become a great guitarist is to truly enjoy being a crappy guitarist for a long time. I wonder if folks will bother suffering through the crappy guitarist portion of their lives when the illusion of rock legend status is just a power button away.