CAKE.

bumpy post a year later can't sleep before worktime

2010-05-10T02:25:00.000-07:00

One of the most important lessons I'm learning not only in improv but in my life is to assume my audience understands what I'm talking about. (Not that everyone in my life is my audience or anything.) (OH WHO AM I KIDDING) (but really not.)

Comprehension is weird. You can often understand a language without being able to speak it. Similarly, your audience can follow a narrative. Your audience remembers what you just said. Your audience has heard of things, has lived in the world. You do not need to perform improv in a vacuum. Humor that is purely referential is hoity-toity at best, cheating at worst, but a really good reference every now and again can flesh a scene out in a way that is so personal, because people have not only experienced whatever bit of culture you just grasped at but had a previous reaction to it, and is now going to be drawn in.

It's one of my worst habits to assume my audience means well but at heart is dumb dumb dumb. But it doesn't do anyone a service to work like that. I have to spin tirelessly at the height of all I have acquired culturally, spiritually, academically, streetedly, friendfully, fightfully, all of it in a mush. Junot Diaz does that damn well. The thing is too--if you really go all out--it inspires people to learn more anyway.

2009-05-11T11:58:00.001-07:00

I'm reading a bio on Lenny Bernstein, and it scares me in some ways--he was in love with music, and pursued it like a mad obsessed man. For me, it feels clear that music is something simply part of my genetic make-up; I have no choice about it, I sing every day because I have feet and walk everyday.

Method

2009-05-10T12:43:00.000-07:00

"The general capacities required of a singer of avant-garde music do not differ from those of the good recital singer:

Imagination,

vocal ability,

research capacity,

cultural background,

personal control,

curiosity, and

the ability to organize and control the raw materials."

-Cathy Berberian

Obviously excellent life criteria as well. Vocal ability included.

Arrival

2008-12-23T00:37:00.000-08:00

Tell You What

I'll tell you what I love...
I love a little mouse
she lives in a hole under the ground
I'll never let her out
I'll never let her out
she doesn't deserve to be let out

I'll tell you where I've been...
I've been a little girl
who's been picking and picking at the wire
hoping for a spark
hoping for a spark
I'm gonna keep her in the goddamn dark

you wanna know my life?
I'm wedded to the wind.
I'm like a butterfly
dead, dried and pinned.
but I work it like a job
I work it like a job
I work it like it's mine to rob

I'll tell you what I want,
you gotta come in close
but don't come too close it's no good too close
just kinda lean on in
just lean on in
I'll tell you what I love
I'll tell you where I've been
I'll tell you where our bodies end
and where do they begin
you're looking at my life?
just lean on in
I'll tell you what I want.
just lean on in.

--written 20 past the midnight hour, 23rd December.

Pre-preproduction jitters

2008-12-19T13:55:00.000-08:00

"Writing-if you're happy with it-undoes all sorrows."
-Orhan Pamuk

Today I meet with Round Three of make-my-music-plz. The first was I paid a lot of money and got nothing, the second was I paid nothing and got a little bit, and now I'm going to pay a relative little and get a relative everything? I pray? (Look! I'm still writing in the open internet air about it. I still, in the open internet air, think my first producer was a big, dripping asshole!)

as for the non-drip, I'm scared, even as I'm brightening! He's freak-folk, and kind, and his words glitter, and our minds interlock tentacles.

I have to do these things: make music, write, and enjoy people and what they do. I am haunted by this Rocko's Modern Life episode, where Rocko & co. are on a cruise that sails into the Bermuda triangle? As they do, spinning clocks appear over their faces, and age them like bananas under the sun.

sooner or later THIS HAPPENS IN REAL LIFE! so march march march in the lockstep joy dictates!

Snow Day

2008-12-14T16:30:00.000-08:00

O Snow! And West Coast snow to boot (har), but lookin' legit. The Wind and I followed the screams to the train tracks, where children outfitted in candy-colored snowsuits streaked down the hill. Until a train actually came:

and I shot that idiotic video.

On the sidewalk, we saw parents tugging a girl on a sled attached to a rope; facial expression this priceless cross between anticipation of a hiccup in the sidewalk and bearing of the cold. I only have a thousand words unfortunately, so I'll end them here.

I feel like you could buy Lebanon for that amount of money

2008-12-06T09:45:00.000-08:00

What's the worst part about someone stealing your credit card and spending 19,000 dollars in Lebanon?
Getting a handwritten letter from your cello rental store, telling you the last payment didn't go through. And then realizing you have to return your cello.

So long, Hello Dolly.

Doo Wop She Bop

2008-12-04T13:49:00.000-08:00

Today we're all going to talk about a popular song by composer Harry Warren and lyricist Al Dubin, written in 1934 for the film Dames, where it was originally sung by Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler.

Peggy Lee, Billie Holliday, Frank Sinatra, and more all tried to do right by it, but it would have been nothing special or grown beyond an ego-massager for a radio crooner had it not been picked up by a couple of doo-wop birds called The Flamingos.

First, unfortunately, we have to have a little talk about Dames. I don't want to depress myself by finding out what the actual story line is, so let's cut right to the number: "I Only Have Eyes For You," which in the musical is nine wacky minutes long, which is at least two minutes too long.

The singers all have clear articulation (you can hear Dick Powell rolling the "R" of "For" for more 'proper' diction), the dancers have nice legs, and there's this big boring band backing everything up. In the number, a young couple are taking the subway. The young man, suddenly overcome by love, earnestly begins to sing all about it, as all the ads on the subway start literally turning into Ruby Keeler's face as he looks at them. Stay with me. We must assume he falls asleep (mid-song?) and enters a world only a guy named Busby Berkeley could have dreamt up, where hundreds of copies of his love's head are bobbing endlessly against a black screen, and a giant gaggle of woman in goosewhite dresses are wearing Ruby Keeler masks and spinning in circles, and all the Big Lebowski fans are suddenly getting another joke.

Technology was not invented back then, so let's just take a moment and realize that everybody actually had to do this, and wear those sweltering masks (which meant they all knew they wouldn't be seen and given credit,) and listen to stupid Busby Berkeley, who at this point was on his fourth wife (out of six), shouting at them through a megaphone to get their legs higher. In any case, clearly the song was made so that big boy Busby Berkeley could let loose and have a big boy Busby Berkeley production number in the middle of the musical, plot be dammed for one two three four five six seven eight f'ing nine minutes. Which is fine, and sort of fun. Clive Hirschhorn describes the dance: "Highspot of the number is the jigsaw made by the girls as each, equipped with a board on her back, bends over so the boards interlock to form a giant-size picture of Ruby." I wish I could choreograph something like this for my funeral.

The song could not be in anything but that most cheerful of keys, C Major, in A1/A2/B/A3 song format. The A1 section ascends from scale degree 1 to 3, and then falls back to 1, while A2 adds neighbor notes and extends the rhythm into triplets for variation, basically trying to dictate something to sound like improvisation. The B section, "I only have eyes for you", attends to downward scalar motion, first ending major and then minor when the song heads into a brief bridge. In the 1934 Dames version, the song is in duple meter, with each word receiving almost the same amount of time; only the word "eyes" gets held for longer than a beat. It keeps the song somewhat conversational, which is only exemplified by the lyrics, which the lyricist apparently overheard in a bar: "Are there stars out tonight? I don't know if it's cloudy or bright; I only have eyes for you." It's cheeseball, but they're going to make a production out of it, damn it.

The Flamingos have never heard of Busby Berkeley, or if they have, they don't let on, thank God. They realize it's actually important to respect the accompaniment rather than bigbanding it to death, just to accentuate a crooning movie star. Every instrument in the Flamingo version is integral to the sound world of the song; an electric guitar plays a short two chord intro (V, II[?! major II? I think I'm in love!]) before resolving on the tonic, the piano gently keeping staccato time in octaves while a snare accentuates the downbeat with brushes. Most importantly, there are three gorgeous tenor voices singing one of the most famous harmony accentuations in 20th century history: "doo-wop-she-bop" on quick 16th notes at the beginning of every other measure, the recording echoing the sound. I have no words for this. It makes the entire song, is completely original, and immediately hands the song over to the Flamingos for all time. It's the part of the song that sticks, and I don't know that I even knew any other lyrics besides "I only have eyes for you" before analyzing this song; I couldn't even remember ANY lyrics to the song at first, I could only remember that persistent, startling, did-they-do-that-oh-they-just-did-it-again harmony from the back-up singers. Then, at the chorus, they all come together in gorgeous, taffy-stretched four part harmony, as the engineer falls asleep just listening to them and forgets to adjust the equalizer, making the song even more caramel-like.

The tempo slows, the accompaniment is hypnotizing, the boys are she-bopping, and I feel like I'm falling in love with a vampire. This is what I want from this song. This song was not born to be a big spectacle, it was born to be eerie and seductive and dreamy and catchy, like (you guessed it!) love. When I fall in love, I want everything to suddenly mute except for the slow moving, almost feminine melody sung by Sollie McElroy on vocals (I don't know that I knew this was a man until I watched the youtube video).

Dames Version: B for Big Boy Bad Boy Bad Boy Whatchu Gonna Do When We Come For You and Your Legions of BackUp Dancers Busby Berkeley, D for everything else

Flamingos version: A++++++++++++++++++++++

And let's not forget that regal eye of parody, Looney Tunes, which was on the right track with its cute little caper by the same title, released on March 6, 1937 and directed by Tex Avery. "I only have ice for you".

2008-12-03T23:29:00.000-08:00

The Co-op was packed like a ship, full of faces; I rocked back and forth on the stage singing and hoping I'd find enough time between songs to cough. It's interesting though, I've been performing enough that now, even when I feel sick, I can get on stage and pretend nothing's wrong and even almost sound like nothing's wrong. I know I love performing and I'd like to take a closer look at it and see where I can go. All those eyes trained on what I'm doing is an interesting feeling. If the excuse is there to stare at me, I want to be as interesting as possible.

2008-12-03T08:57:00.000-08:00

I'm working on a musical analysis of "I only have eyes for you" by the Flamingos, if for no reason other than I can't get the song out of my head for some reason. It just has one of the best hooks I've ever heard. I can't find sheet music for it unfortunately, only those fuzzy, watermarked 2-inch high images off of Google.

In my bathtub are two still spiders. One looks like a small thick heart that sprouted horrible legs, and the other is more Grinch-heart sized, spindlier. Spiders have never been a source of much terror for me.

This is slightly old school, but oh well

2008-11-19T01:14:00.001-08:00

I was assigned to transcribe a Sarah Palin interview. Here you go.

SARAH PALIN SEZ...

Charles Gibson asks Sarah Palin if the Iraq War is a holy war.

Q: You said recently in your old church: "Our national leaders are sending U.S. soldiers on a task that is from God." Are we fighting a holy war?

A: You know, I don't if that was my exact quote--

Q: That's your exact words.

A: --But the reference there is a repeat of Abraham Lincoln's words, when he said--first he suggested, "Never presume to know what God's will is." and I would never presume to know God's will or to speak God's words, but what Abraham Lincoln had said and that's a repeat in my comments was, 'let us not pray that God is on our side in a war or any other time, but let us pray that we are on God's side." That's what that comment was all about Charlie.

Q: I take your point about Lincoln's words, but you went on and said "There is a plan, and it is God's plan."

A: I believe there is a plan for this world, and that plan for this world is for good. I believe that there is great hope and great potential for every country to be able to live and be protected with inalienable rights that I believe are God-given, Charlie, and I believe that those are the rights to life, and liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That in my world view is a grand--

Q: But--

A: -- the grand plan.

Q: But then are you sending your son on a task that is from God?

Q: I don't know if the task is from God, Charlie, what I know is that my son has made a decision. I am so proud of his independent and strong decision he has made what he decided to do, in serving for the right reasons, is serving something greater than self, and not choosing a real easy path where he could be more comfortable and certainly safer.

your long time curse hurts.

2008-11-01T16:21:00.001-07:00

Good personal facts get meatier through re-evaluation, like the fact that, even though I mostly try to steer clear of him, Bob Dylan manages to break into me and face myself i.e. cry. I really avoid him, but Pandora sends him knocking on my door, or Dave makes me a cd where he purposely puts bob dylan on it even when i warn him not to. Then, as I'm listening critically to his voice pressed against his teeth and his musical saw-like pitch, and even as i'm thinking all these critical things i also notice that I'm crying. he scares me to death.

So why does he freak me out so much? You know when you don't want to do something good for you because you know it'll change the way your life is going? It's a loss of innocence. that's how I feel about going through a bob dylan phase. I know it'll happen, but i'm afraid of what it will do to me as a musician. i.e. devastated.
I don't ever wish I was less sensitive to really excellent art, but it can be hard when it really hurts you down to the bed, crying.
i should just do it. new year's resolution: deal with bob dylan.

Devoting oneself to art feels like trying to reinvent different ways to put oneself through puberty.

2008-10-29T09:22:00.000-07:00

It's funny that a nervous (cynical? depressed?) side of my brain contests the importance of writing every day. "not important--why are you doing it--no no no" flaps out of its sour mouth, ankles together, feet turned out. If I call it funny then I have control over it. If something is absurd, it's divorced from being a part of you, it's able to be rejected.
I have a studio class today. I'm working on a Brahms piece that has a theme suspiciously similar to a Christmas carol, the part in Noel that goes "on a cold winter's night that wah-as so deep." Brahms writes all these interlocking pieces of music, and apparently everyone discovers Brahms as an undergrad and gets mesmerized. I wouldn't say I'm mesmerized, just impressed. This is the guy that said something along the lines of, "I'm less shocked that I'm so lazy than that other people are so ambitious."
Here's a ridiculous Nazi conductor: "von Karajan treated his orchestra with aristocratic scorn. He conducted entire concerts with his eyes closed; and when he edited the films of the orchestra he systematically removed any shots of his players' faces. Asked by Roger Vaughan why, he said simply, 'Because they are ugly.'"

Shape those notes!

2008-10-26T13:54:00.000-07:00

So, weirdly enough, after I wrote that review about Shape Note singing, I found out my friends from Elvis Perkins in Dearland just sang on an album of what seems to be 'sacred harp' cover songs. It's nifty, eerie, etc.

Listen to this bewitching stuff, please.

How to tell if it's Schubert

2008-10-07T21:39:00.001-07:00

Is there a piano?
Is there a vocalist?
Is it the best song you've ever heard?

Then, it's.

That's nice

2008-10-05T13:23:00.000-07:00

David Byrne.

He does basically whatever he wants. Someday I hope I can trust myself as much as David Byrne seems to trust himself.

I like the part of his life where he turned a 99-year old building in Manhattan into a musical instrument.

Landsake!

2008-10-01T17:56:00.000-07:00

I found a cake! It was made by Zhanna Zubova, an unGooglable Russian artist.

Really a cake!

Sweet Accord

2008-09-12T01:25:00.000-07:00

What does America sound like? (Is it a testament to this country that I struggle to answer that question?) Am I so unaware of America's roots that Rivers of Delight, an acapella collection of American Folk Hymns from the Sacred Harp tradition, sounds completely foreign to me? I'd have answered all these questions, if I hadn't been so busy being enchanted and bemused in turn by the Word of Mouth chorus, and their shapenote/Fasola/whatever-you-want-to-call-it style of singing. I picture it as the countrymouse to its city-mouse cousin, Christmas caroling.
The majority of tracks on Rivers of Delight are under 2 minutes, and wisely so. These songs are exhausting, for both the singers and the listener. With each wandering, bucolic hymn, I'm reminded that this is real folk music, and it takes no prisoners. This is meant in unavoidable reference to the stark, unfiltered quality of each track; this music is nothing if not raw. As a choir brat, I was immediately on the defensive. The first song sent my lip curling. What are those vowel sounds? Is the choir...yelling? My inner soprano was ruffled, possibly shocked. The voices dive into the songs, sounding like they're trying to muscle each other out of the way to be the loudest. In fact, aside from quadruple fortissimo, there is a brazen abandoning of dynamics, as well as axe-swingingly confident parallel octaves, and generally a cheerful disregard for anything but sheer power of rhythm and the voice. It threatens, in its folksy way, to bring the entire foundation of western music theory to its overly-refined knees. My overly refined ear had to reconcile with the untrained squawking from the tenor section: at first abrasive, but eventually mesmorizing. I learned later that, instead of standard SATB, the parts are divided into treble, alto, tenor and bass. Men and women sing the treble line an octave's length apart, while the tenor takes care of the melody. It's slightly unnerving, but effective with the text; this is church music, and the spirit is soaring.
One reason for their unfinished sound is the choir is actively trying to get you to sing along. The beat is driving, the phrasing clips along like horse hooves. If the lyrics call for a rough sound, they're rough and stomping all over you ("Cowper"), but sandwiched between the more honking songs are gorgeous, rippling ballads like "Sweet Prospect", winding melodies incorporating only female voices or a selection of singers. "Peace and Joy" exemplifies the animated quality of the album; the chorus sings a merry fugue until they reach an almost cartoonish rhythmic unison on phrases like "Never shall the cross forsake me!" Celtic influence is not far off, especially in the duet "Parting friends", complete with bleak lyrics and a distinctly irish warble in the female vocal line. There are liner notes as well, written by self-proclaimed leader Larry Gordan, with full lyrics and a bit of a history lesson. It's much appreciated by anyone purchasing this album, because after listening to a few of these songs, you'll realize you need to know everything about what and where the hell these songs come from.
The album is exactly 30 years old, and if nothing's changed since 1978, there are still over 500 annual Sacred Harp sessions throughout the South. Haunting and timeless in their simplicity and strangeness, the album is a splash into different waters, shocking at first, but then refreshing, as each carousing song ends quickly enough for you to catch your breath--then happily dive in again and again.

Hello Meredith Monk.

2008-09-09T23:56:00.001-07:00

Dolmen Music, Meredith Monk's love letter to the larynx, is set for six voices (three men, three women) and a lone cellist who, by the end of the album, may have wondered if she had wandered into the wrong recording session. The album is firmly centered on the voice. Every piece stretches the 'singers' into a different, wordless dimension, sometimes mimicking the vocal sensations of gregorian chant, other times of terrifying ritualistic dances; an early moment uses simple tonal phrasing to mock the English language, as the men seem to 'talk' to each other in nonsense syllables, sounding so conversational it tricks the ear into thinking the babble is understandable. It poses an interesting question to the listener: Is this how I heard before I learned how to speak? It might not be different from being a baby: is this music how babies feel before language connects them to their surroundings? I'm sure explosive laughter would be startling to a baby, as the punctuated shrieking toward the end of the album was to me as a first time listener.
Dolmen is an Irish word, and it refers to a tomb, a word that immediately colored my interpretation of the pieces. I wasn't struck by signs of mourning or grief from these pieces, though there are moments of extreme cacophony and heavy, gray "ahh" vowels. What's clear is she's remembering the voice as an instrument. She made the decision to be playful with the possibilities of voice, to abandon lyrics and embrace minimalism. Though often refreshing, it's slightly myopic at times, almost reminiscent of the sounds a recreational drug user might make while high and 'dude, I think I'm hearing my voice for the first time'.

Kronos Quartet deals with John Zorn

2008-09-07T18:24:00.001-07:00

In the first few measures of John Zorn’s Cat O’ Nine Tails, The Kronos Quartet isn’t setting a theme, or establishing the tonic, or even setting the tempo. They sound like they’re pulling up a floorboard. It’s Pandora’s floorboard, no less, and the following minutes emerge rife with dissonance and rapid bowing, not to mention plucking, slapping, and (is it? yep) barking. "I've got an incredibly short attention span,” the composer explains. “My music is jam-packed with information that is changing very fast.” The Kronos quartet has done a fine job processing that kind of mentality. The strings don’t merely bow; they hum, flutter, screech and even take a moment to tease a confused ear with a bluegrass rhythm that ends as abruptly as it begins. The Quartet, right at home on Zorn’s wavelength, continues throughout the piece to hop, waver, plunge into non-sequitur cadences, whisper, cry out, and of course, mew. (I’m still referring to your standard violin.) There are moments of tonal balance, but those sweep by quickly, as if deemed suddenly passé. With all this internal madness, it might not be a floorboard being pulled up after all, but the top of John Zorn’s head. The strings often fire like brain response synapses, with a lot of colorful chromatic and dynamic dipping and diving, before finally winding down quietly and suddenly, playing a series of chords somewhat sadly (as one instrument piteously mews). It left me with the spinning impression that the piece (and Zorn’s glistening brain) is alive and attractively complex, though it sounds like he could make use of a butterfly net in there, or maybe even a fly swatter.