Two pieces of really great news.
1. Evidently Angels and Demons, the violin solo I wrote for my friend Carol (who will be premiering the piece March 31st, as I recall) at Truman State, is pretty ok. I gave it to one of the violinists in the orchestra to look at, too. She said after much swearing (as composers, isn't that part of our job?) that the piece was absolutely playable and that it had really grown on her and she really liked it. That is encouraging and so was she. She also said some other nice things that would simply be too self-indulgent to repeat here.
2. The romantic comedy/light fantasy film that I scored last year, The Importance of Blind Dating, has been selected for performance at The Method Independent Film Festival March 31-April 7 in Calabasas, California! How awesome is that?
Anyone want to contribute to the "Send Brad to California" Fund?
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Monday, February 27, 2006
Introducing Modern Music and Serial Extensions
I have been thinking about this most recent discussion more. Actually it's still kind of driving me nuts. It occured to me that there are other forces at work here that need to be explored.
First, McIntire says we should basically use our anger to have something to push against. I think that there is a great deal of validity in this and I've never thought about it this way (stupid me!). This is good advice and utilizing it can help us prove to the world that we do, in fact, have something to say and we might not have the desire to say it in the same way as our predecessors (or we do want to say it like our predecessors a couple of generations removed, take your pick). So from that point of view it's good to have something to push against.
Second, and this is big, is it possible that those of us making this argument are doing a great disservice to the two or three generations of composers before us that worked hard to break free from this kind of dogma to open up new vistas for us, the "younger" generation? This is my fear now. The "live and let live" attitude that began developing in the 1960s helping bring about the "return to tonality" (not that tonality ever actually went anywhere) seems to have, in many respects, come full circle. It seems that now those in what might be referred to as the "tonal majority" are beginning to treat those in the "minority" with furious anger. In a sense doesn't this violate the basic tenets of this philosophy? Are we not wandering into dangerous dogmatic territory of our own? Shouldn't the music itself be the thing and not the means that brought us to that end?
Third, I've found what truly makes me angry. It's not the music. It's not its underying philosophies or techniques. I wish that the subject matter had been presented to me better when I was an undergraduate. I wish someone had taken the time to explain to a me a little bit more about Babbitt's background. I know he's nuts about jazz and musical theatre. I know that Sondheim (genius) is probably his most famous student. I just wish that someone would have placed his ideas into the proper context rather than just said, "Here it is. Deal with it." This angers me a great deal and should I ever have to teach it I know for sure that I would teach it with a much more open mind.
I realize that this music rubs a lot of people the wrong way. Most of it, in fact, doesn't have this affect on me. It's the dogma behind a lot of the music that bothers me. I think my own personal experience with modern music of all kinds has actually been better than a lot of musicians/music students. Perhaps this is because I came to the music of the Second Viennese School and beyond on my own and without any kind of academic pretense. This doesn't keep me from feeling a kind of ambiguity about it though. I like and respect a great deal of the music. I admire much of the complexity. But I also have this deep love of neotonal music representing both postminimalism and the new complexity.
I invite your insults of "waffler" and such, but this entire discussion has given me cause to think about the whole affair a little more.
First, McIntire says we should basically use our anger to have something to push against. I think that there is a great deal of validity in this and I've never thought about it this way (stupid me!). This is good advice and utilizing it can help us prove to the world that we do, in fact, have something to say and we might not have the desire to say it in the same way as our predecessors (or we do want to say it like our predecessors a couple of generations removed, take your pick). So from that point of view it's good to have something to push against.
Second, and this is big, is it possible that those of us making this argument are doing a great disservice to the two or three generations of composers before us that worked hard to break free from this kind of dogma to open up new vistas for us, the "younger" generation? This is my fear now. The "live and let live" attitude that began developing in the 1960s helping bring about the "return to tonality" (not that tonality ever actually went anywhere) seems to have, in many respects, come full circle. It seems that now those in what might be referred to as the "tonal majority" are beginning to treat those in the "minority" with furious anger. In a sense doesn't this violate the basic tenets of this philosophy? Are we not wandering into dangerous dogmatic territory of our own? Shouldn't the music itself be the thing and not the means that brought us to that end?
Third, I've found what truly makes me angry. It's not the music. It's not its underying philosophies or techniques. I wish that the subject matter had been presented to me better when I was an undergraduate. I wish someone had taken the time to explain to a me a little bit more about Babbitt's background. I know he's nuts about jazz and musical theatre. I know that Sondheim (genius) is probably his most famous student. I just wish that someone would have placed his ideas into the proper context rather than just said, "Here it is. Deal with it." This angers me a great deal and should I ever have to teach it I know for sure that I would teach it with a much more open mind.
I realize that this music rubs a lot of people the wrong way. Most of it, in fact, doesn't have this affect on me. It's the dogma behind a lot of the music that bothers me. I think my own personal experience with modern music of all kinds has actually been better than a lot of musicians/music students. Perhaps this is because I came to the music of the Second Viennese School and beyond on my own and without any kind of academic pretense. This doesn't keep me from feeling a kind of ambiguity about it though. I like and respect a great deal of the music. I admire much of the complexity. But I also have this deep love of neotonal music representing both postminimalism and the new complexity.
I invite your insults of "waffler" and such, but this entire discussion has given me cause to think about the whole affair a little more.
Thursday, February 23, 2006
Hiatus
Okay kids, I'm going to take a little blogger break for a few days. All this talk of Babbitt and Cage has made me a little crazy. But it's also helped put me in the mood to write. Thanks for the comments.
I'm submitting for a festival a work for violin and piano that I haven't written yet and the deadline is March 1. As in next Wednesday. Am I insane? Maybe. See you on the other side.
I'm also going to listen to my new recording of Sibelius' Kullervo. Don't have it? Get it!
I'm submitting for a festival a work for violin and piano that I haven't written yet and the deadline is March 1. As in next Wednesday. Am I insane? Maybe. See you on the other side.
I'm also going to listen to my new recording of Sibelius' Kullervo. Don't have it? Get it!
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
Taking Up Arms With the Warrior Bard
Before reading this, read this.
This is such dogmatically dangerous ground on which to be treading and yet, as a willing heretical participant, there’s so much to say. Where does one begin?
First let us be fair to Milton Babbitt. He didn’t title his article “Who cares if you listen?” That was the editor of the magazine that did that. Okay, that’s it.
I still don’t put much stock in the subject matter of the article. Is composition a highly specific field? Yes. Does that mean it shouldn’t be accessible? No. Even Schoenberg knew that if he was going to write his music using the system he devised that he still had to place an emphasis on clarity. No matter how abstract, his music should be comprehensible to more than just the most highly trained of all composers (about 6 people). One would also be remiss not to mention the incorporation of the human element into Schoenberg’s music. And Webern shouldn’t be blamed, either. His music is incredibly inspired and well crafted. It was the post-WWII serialists who took Webern’s work and codified it to its utmost extremes.
“The sad thing is, this school of thought has become dogmatic for any scholarly composer. If you disagree, you're narrow-minded…what's the point of discussing, if we're not going to really discuss anything? They don't want discussion; they want conformity.” - Tim
"Any attempt to codify musical reality into a kind of imitation grammar (I refer mainly to the efforts associated with the Twelve-Tone System) is a brand of fetishism which shares with Fascism and racism the tendency to reduce live processes to immobile, labeled objects, the tendency to deal with formalities rather than substance. Claude Levi-Strauss describes (though to illustrate a different point) a captain at sea, his ship reduced to a frail raft without sails, who, by enforcing a meticulous protocol on his crew, is able to distract them from nostalgia for a safe harbor and from the desire for a destination.”
-Luciano Berio, Meditation on a Twelve-Tone Horse
I understand that the older generation grew up with this method. We get it. There was no other way. Beyond all this, though, is something that is much more subversive and sinister. Whilst the strictures of academia have loosened in recent years there is still this frighteningly dogmatic adherence to the music/teachings of Babbitt, Cage, Stockhausen and Boulez, even if only in theoretical form, in the upper echelons of academia. I’ve been thinking about this for years. Literally. I have thought for a long time now that the kind of conformity that came to be expected of composers after World War II is dangerous and fascist. You will do it this way! Isn’t this the kind of thinking that started that war in the first place? You will not question. You will acquiesce. The perfect society is a conformist society.
What’s worse is that this attitude developed (and, to a point, persists today) in a time where a lot of interesting things were happening musically outside of Darmstadt. That school basically turned a blind eye to all of it. There is no dialogue between proponents of total serialism and other musics. None. What does exist is merely a monologue which places no value on the influence of popular forms. Are you going to tell me that the likes of Miles Davis, George Gershwin, John Coltrane and Thelonius Monk don’t deserve to be placed with the most brilliant of their academic counterparts? If that’s the case I beg to differ. Furthermore I’m not sure if I would want to be associated with those that might actually think this.
I respect serialism, just as any thoroughly trained composer who learned how to utilize it should. I even enjoy incorporating serial elements into my own compositions from time to time. But I can’t bring myself to surrender all creative control (not to mention my humanity) to a formula that merely expresses one’s intellect and totally discounts one’s personal experiences. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that Babbitt’s music has no value. Like all previous music, it has historical and theoretical value when taken into the whole of musical history. To me total serialism is largely empty and devoid of meaning.
The faculty nearly bit the heads off of anyone who remotely insinuated anything anti-Babbitt. So... what's the point of discussing, if we're not going to really discuss anything? They don't want discussion; they want conformity.
When the subject of Babbitt and his teachings comes up there is no discussion. You accept everything or you are a heretic. When our teachers talk about him all of a sudden there is this reverential tone and he is spoken of as if he were some kind of Promethean figure bringing fire and knowledge to we mere mortals.
Now here's my two cents:
The conformity demanded by the proponents of total serialism amounts to little more than the dogmatic practices of musical terrorists who would rather blow up the entire world for the sake of their empty god than admit that there might be other paths to musical expression that are capable of coexisting. - Brad Fowler
“Alas, this industrialized twelve-tone horse, dull on the outside and empty inside, constantly being perfected and dragged to a new Troy in shadow of an ideological war long since fought and won by responsible minds like Schoenberg, with neither systems nor scholarship for armor!"
-Berio, “Meditations…”
This is such dogmatically dangerous ground on which to be treading and yet, as a willing heretical participant, there’s so much to say. Where does one begin?
First let us be fair to Milton Babbitt. He didn’t title his article “Who cares if you listen?” That was the editor of the magazine that did that. Okay, that’s it.
I still don’t put much stock in the subject matter of the article. Is composition a highly specific field? Yes. Does that mean it shouldn’t be accessible? No. Even Schoenberg knew that if he was going to write his music using the system he devised that he still had to place an emphasis on clarity. No matter how abstract, his music should be comprehensible to more than just the most highly trained of all composers (about 6 people). One would also be remiss not to mention the incorporation of the human element into Schoenberg’s music. And Webern shouldn’t be blamed, either. His music is incredibly inspired and well crafted. It was the post-WWII serialists who took Webern’s work and codified it to its utmost extremes.
“The sad thing is, this school of thought has become dogmatic for any scholarly composer. If you disagree, you're narrow-minded…what's the point of discussing, if we're not going to really discuss anything? They don't want discussion; they want conformity.” - Tim
"Any attempt to codify musical reality into a kind of imitation grammar (I refer mainly to the efforts associated with the Twelve-Tone System) is a brand of fetishism which shares with Fascism and racism the tendency to reduce live processes to immobile, labeled objects, the tendency to deal with formalities rather than substance. Claude Levi-Strauss describes (though to illustrate a different point) a captain at sea, his ship reduced to a frail raft without sails, who, by enforcing a meticulous protocol on his crew, is able to distract them from nostalgia for a safe harbor and from the desire for a destination.”
-Luciano Berio, Meditation on a Twelve-Tone Horse
I understand that the older generation grew up with this method. We get it. There was no other way. Beyond all this, though, is something that is much more subversive and sinister. Whilst the strictures of academia have loosened in recent years there is still this frighteningly dogmatic adherence to the music/teachings of Babbitt, Cage, Stockhausen and Boulez, even if only in theoretical form, in the upper echelons of academia. I’ve been thinking about this for years. Literally. I have thought for a long time now that the kind of conformity that came to be expected of composers after World War II is dangerous and fascist. You will do it this way! Isn’t this the kind of thinking that started that war in the first place? You will not question. You will acquiesce. The perfect society is a conformist society.
What’s worse is that this attitude developed (and, to a point, persists today) in a time where a lot of interesting things were happening musically outside of Darmstadt. That school basically turned a blind eye to all of it. There is no dialogue between proponents of total serialism and other musics. None. What does exist is merely a monologue which places no value on the influence of popular forms. Are you going to tell me that the likes of Miles Davis, George Gershwin, John Coltrane and Thelonius Monk don’t deserve to be placed with the most brilliant of their academic counterparts? If that’s the case I beg to differ. Furthermore I’m not sure if I would want to be associated with those that might actually think this.
I respect serialism, just as any thoroughly trained composer who learned how to utilize it should. I even enjoy incorporating serial elements into my own compositions from time to time. But I can’t bring myself to surrender all creative control (not to mention my humanity) to a formula that merely expresses one’s intellect and totally discounts one’s personal experiences. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that Babbitt’s music has no value. Like all previous music, it has historical and theoretical value when taken into the whole of musical history. To me total serialism is largely empty and devoid of meaning.
The faculty nearly bit the heads off of anyone who remotely insinuated anything anti-Babbitt. So... what's the point of discussing, if we're not going to really discuss anything? They don't want discussion; they want conformity.
When the subject of Babbitt and his teachings comes up there is no discussion. You accept everything or you are a heretic. When our teachers talk about him all of a sudden there is this reverential tone and he is spoken of as if he were some kind of Promethean figure bringing fire and knowledge to we mere mortals.
Now here's my two cents:
The conformity demanded by the proponents of total serialism amounts to little more than the dogmatic practices of musical terrorists who would rather blow up the entire world for the sake of their empty god than admit that there might be other paths to musical expression that are capable of coexisting. - Brad Fowler
“Alas, this industrialized twelve-tone horse, dull on the outside and empty inside, constantly being perfected and dragged to a new Troy in shadow of an ideological war long since fought and won by responsible minds like Schoenberg, with neither systems nor scholarship for armor!"
-Berio, “Meditations…”
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
I Hate Writing About Me
Okay, that's not entirely true. When it comes to this blog, I tend to write a lot about me. Then again, it's my blog and I'll cry if I want to. Oh wait...there was a point here.
Anywayyyy...
I'm submitting a couple of scores for a new music festival in the fall and, along with those scores, recordings, program notes, etc., I have to include my bio. I hate doing this. How does one write about one's achievements without sounding smarmy? Beyond that, I have so little real experience at this thing that my bio kind of looks pathetic. Granted it's an opportunity to talk about myself and what I've supposedly done, but it's still annoying. I think McIntire wrote about this previously. A lot of people - especially composers - will pad their resume with the slightest contact of a "name". It's kind of like a native American coup (sp?) stick. Sometimes you'd whack somebody over the head with it in battle for glory and honor. Sometimes you'd just touch someone who was already on the ground dead and claim it for yourself. I met Krzysztof Penderecki after a Chicago Symphony concert in 2000, do I get to put that on my resume? I think there are some unscrupulous composers who probably would. But the fact of the matter is that, at this point in my life, there's only one person with whom I've actually studied who has had a direct influence on my writing. I also don't expect that to change anytime soon.
Anywayyyy...
I'm submitting a couple of scores for a new music festival in the fall and, along with those scores, recordings, program notes, etc., I have to include my bio. I hate doing this. How does one write about one's achievements without sounding smarmy? Beyond that, I have so little real experience at this thing that my bio kind of looks pathetic. Granted it's an opportunity to talk about myself and what I've supposedly done, but it's still annoying. I think McIntire wrote about this previously. A lot of people - especially composers - will pad their resume with the slightest contact of a "name". It's kind of like a native American coup (sp?) stick. Sometimes you'd whack somebody over the head with it in battle for glory and honor. Sometimes you'd just touch someone who was already on the ground dead and claim it for yourself. I met Krzysztof Penderecki after a Chicago Symphony concert in 2000, do I get to put that on my resume? I think there are some unscrupulous composers who probably would. But the fact of the matter is that, at this point in my life, there's only one person with whom I've actually studied who has had a direct influence on my writing. I also don't expect that to change anytime soon.
Friday, February 10, 2006
Happy Birthday, Jerry
Jerry Goldsmith (1929-2004) is still my favorite film composer. It's still kind of sinking in that I'm never going to see another new movie poster with his name on it. I love John Williams' music. Bernard Herrmann was a genius. But few others have been quite adept at being so chameleon-like in their ability to genre jump.
With that in mind, we'll be enjoying a good mix of standards andthe more obscure works of Mr. Goldsmith's output. Afterall, Jerry Goldsmith is to me what John Williams is to the Pikey. I have lots.
The Omen
Rio Conchos
QB VII
Take a Hard Ride
In Like Flint/Our Man Flint
Alien
Star Trek: The Motion Picture
Rudy
Basic Instinct
First Knight
The 13th Warrior
and.....
Christus Apollo (cantata for orchestra and chorus based on writings of Ray Bradbury, 1969)
Music for Orchestra (commissioned and premiered by Leonard Slatkin and the St Louis Symphony, 1970)
Fireworks (written as part of Jerry's first concert series with the LA Philharmonic, 1999)
Thursday, February 09, 2006
A Sad Day For Godzilla
The composer that defined the sound of the Godzilla films has died. According to the BBC online, Akira Ifukube died of multiple organ failure today. He was 91.
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
Happy Birthday, Johnny
Happy 74th Birthday to the Maestro.Today's Playlist celebrates John Williams who is arguably the most famous living composer in the world (like it or not, which I do!).
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Superman
E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial
Star Wars
Schindler's List
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
And let's not forget a few concert works:
The Violin Concerto
Treesong for Violin and Orchestra
Cello Concerto
So listen to some Johnny today!
Friday, February 03, 2006
Film Score Friday 2/3/2006
Today's Theme: Music from films directed by or adapted from Michael Crichton.
Coma - Jerry Goldsmith, 1978
The Great Train Robbery - Jerry Goldsmith, 1979
Jurassic Park - John Williams, 1993
Congo - Jerry Goldsmith, 1995
Twister - Mark Mancina, 1996
The Lost World: Jurassic Park - John Williams, 1997
Sphere - Elliot Goldenthal, 1998
The 13th Warrior - Jerry Goldsmith, 1999 (Graeme Revell score rejected)
Jurassic Park III - Don Davis, 2001 (themes by John Williams)
Timeline - Brian Tyler, 2003
Timeline - Jerry Goldsmith, 2003 (unused)
Enjoy!
Coma - Jerry Goldsmith, 1978
The Great Train Robbery - Jerry Goldsmith, 1979
Jurassic Park - John Williams, 1993
Congo - Jerry Goldsmith, 1995
Twister - Mark Mancina, 1996
The Lost World: Jurassic Park - John Williams, 1997
Sphere - Elliot Goldenthal, 1998
The 13th Warrior - Jerry Goldsmith, 1999 (Graeme Revell score rejected)
Jurassic Park III - Don Davis, 2001 (themes by John Williams)
Timeline - Brian Tyler, 2003
Timeline - Jerry Goldsmith, 2003 (unused)
Enjoy!
Thursday, February 02, 2006
Rotations, Just for Fun
composer
Set 1:
composer
omposerc
mposerco
posercom
osercomp
sercompo
ercompos
rcompose
composer
Set 2:
co mp os er
oc mp os er
oc pm os er
oc pm so er
oc pm so re
Set 2':
co mp os er
mp os er co
os er co mp
er co mp os
co mp os er
Set 2":
co mp os er
mp os er oc
os er oc pm
er oc pm so
oc pm so re
Set 3:
com poser
omc oserp
mco serpo
com erpos
omc rpose
mco poser
com oserp
omc serpo
mco erpos
com rpose
omc poser
mco oserp
com serpo
omc erpos
mco rpose
com poser
Set 4:
comp oser
ompc sero
mpco eros
pcom rose
comp oser
Set 4':
comp oser
ompo serc
mpos erco
pose rcom
oser comp
serc ompo
erco mpos
rcom pose
comp oser
Set 1:
composer
omposerc
mposerco
posercom
osercomp
sercompo
ercompos
rcompose
composer
Set 2:
co mp os er
oc mp os er
oc pm os er
oc pm so er
oc pm so re
Set 2':
co mp os er
mp os er co
os er co mp
er co mp os
co mp os er
Set 2":
co mp os er
mp os er oc
os er oc pm
er oc pm so
oc pm so re
Set 3:
com poser
omc oserp
mco serpo
com erpos
omc rpose
mco poser
com oserp
omc serpo
mco erpos
com rpose
omc poser
mco oserp
com serpo
omc erpos
mco rpose
com poser
Set 4:
comp oser
ompc sero
mpco eros
pcom rose
comp oser
Set 4':
comp oser
ompo serc
mpos erco
pose rcom
oser comp
serc ompo
erco mpos
rcom pose
comp oser
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