aaaa this weekend my friends took me to the cities to hear Alexander Rybak (and like the best pianist from Belarus/Norway) play classical music!! they were fantastic, holy shit. godddd I miss playing and being around musicians who are Genuinely passionate about music. and he seems so down to earth. I think the pianist, Stefan Zlatanos, is probably one of the best pianists (&by far the best accompanists I’ve ever heard, WOW).

if you ever have a chance to hear them play, please go see them! they like small venues which is sooooo nice, and they rly wanna support these local places. I want them to be my friends, lol.

Small Isles Interview: Filmless Music

Photo by Dustin Aksland

BY JORDAN MAINZER

It’s rare that you find a record with a genesis as specific as The Valley, The Mountains, The Sea, the debut album from Small Isles. The new project of guitarist Jim Fairchild (Grandaddy, former Modest Mouse) and songwriter/composer Jacob Snider has its basis in film scoring. The catch? The films don’t exist. The Valley, The Mountains, The Sea is presented as an imaginary score to an imagined sequel to Ang Lee’s 1997 familial drama The Ice Storm, itself based on Rick Moody’s 1994 novel. And the band’s upcoming, unfinished EP, with strings arranged by Snider and recorded by collaborator Sienna Peck, is, according to the band, a distillation of the concept of the band, one that consciously combines film scoring motifs with traditional songwriting. In a way, you could say that Small Isles is music about film scoring as much as scores itself.

Fairchild and Snider hold the belief that film scores should hold their own as a piece of music independent of visuals, and on The Valley, The Mountains, The Sea, they announce themselves convincingly. Opening track “The Concept”--essentially the prototype for the band--combines vaguely harmonic deep bass sounds with pristine, echoing string plucks, and wordless vocals, building up like an Explosions in the Sky tune. Other tracks, too, juxtapose the ambient with recognizable structures. “Fort Wayne” shimmers atop a drum machine, while the vocal samples of “Maybe We Will” cut in and out among the beats and arpeggios. Each track also has a pristine sense of place, as much of the album was written while Fairchild was on tour with Modest Mouse, tracks like “Fort Wayne” and the washy, atonal “Lake Superior” started in those locations.

I spoke with Fairchild (calling from his home in Ojai, California” and Snider (calling from near Philadelphia) last week, a few days prior to the release of the album via AKP Recordings. (The album comes out on vinyl next month). Read our conversation below, edited for length and clarity, about the band’s artistic process, The Ice Storm, adapting the songs live, and what Small Isles has in common with Olivia Rodrigo’s Sour.

Since I Left You: You’ve called this record an imaginary score to an imaginary film. Did you think of the sequencing of the record in a narrative arc?

Jim Fairchild: Kind of, but honestly, there’s a sequence that originally existed, and I don’t remember what it was, and it would have been more aligned with what I pictured from the movie, but it didn’t work as well as a comprehensive piece of music. The last song on here, “The Plot to Take Clover”, that was earlier before. “Life at One”, the first single, really kicked off me and Jacob’s partnership. It was designed that way; it’s not the way the record plays out. I wrote all of the principle themes, the underpinnings of all the compositions, as an imagined score to some sort of a sequel to The Ice Storm. I don’t know exactly how it would play out with Rick Moody. The first one was really successful. I have this idea for a similar type of movie that takes place in contemporary California and all these cues I can use as a mood board. Like, let’s sit down and figure out what this palate is. Let’s write a movie around it. That’s what I was thinking.

SILY: You wrote a lot of this while on tour. Had you conceived of the idea before then and wrote while on tour because of your downtime, or was the downtime the launching point for the idea?

JF: I was totally inspired by the idea. I started some of the themes that popped up, but once the actual Ice Storm Ang Lee idea came to mind, it was really generative. It’s how a lot of this stuff works with me. It kind of floats around for a while, reaching out this way or that. Once the real kernel appears, it’s like, “That’s it!” It all happens pretty quickly. That was definitely the case with this. It was the real fine-tuning that’s the most time consuming. That’s what Jacob and I have experienced. The EP that we’re releasing later this year, basically how it’s worked so far is I send him a sequence of chords and basic rhythm, which happens pretty quickly. Then--and we’ve only done it on Zoom with the new EP, though it was the same with “Life at One”--there was this theme. Jacob came in, we were gonna write some other stuff. He came in with a mic and sang some stacked harmonies. Then it’s carving out all the other elements around that to make it. 

These are unconventional compositions. They’re meant to accompany visual ideas. With that in mind, cues and scoring music doesn’t always work in recorded music, traditionally speaking. There’s all these lengths, sometimes time signatures shift, a melody might exist in an unconventional way to fit what’s happening visually. I really wanted to embrace that. With “Life at One”, Jacob did all this stuff, and there’s this really interesting sound I don’t know how to describe. He asked, “What are those over there?” [My partner Natasha Wheat] had made these ceramic bells for me, and that’s the most fun part about working with Jacob. A lot of the people who are trained as Jacob is--and I say this with great admiration for his abilities--are stuck in certain modalities. This is a perfect example. He looked at the bells and said, “Let’s do that.” He grabbed a drumstick and played the edge of these bells and processed them. That was a big feature in the composition of “Life at One”. This all happens very thematically and reflexively, but to then carve it up and get it to have purpose, meaning, ebb, and flow and make it work visually--that’s where the dirty shit happens. [laughs] I also look forward to when Jacob and I can be in person more. We’ve made a lot happen over the past 7 months, but it’s hard when you’re not in the same room. Plus, I’d like to show off. If he’s sitting right next to me, play some fast guitar...[laughs]

SILY: The title of the record refers to various aspects of topography, and there are song titles that refer to specific places, like “Fort Wayne” and “Lake Superior”. Do these aspects exist within the narrative of the film?

JF: “Lake Superior” and “Fort Wayne” were just started in those places, literally. I picture the Ang Lee movie--the new Ang Lee movie that is inevitably gonna take form because he’s gonna hear me and Jacob’s music and think, “You’re right, we gotta do this,”--in this zone a little bit east of Berkeley. It’s the West Coast equivalent of the Connecticut zone where The Ice Storm exists. It’s this affluent, green place. But the reason I chose to keep the others as titles is like, Fort Wayne, that’s pretty grand and has Batman implications. And Lake Superior, what a fucking great name for a lake, you know? I like the power of those, and if I were sitting down and writing a movie, those titles could be at least generative of a conversation.

SILY: What about the other song titles? What inspired them?

JF: “The Concept” is literally the concept for our band. The concept has expanded since then, but out of the ordinary--no sounds are out of the ordinary in modern production--but in the film scoring landscape, out of the ordinary, ambient, or textural sounds. But then big, beautiful melodies. Jacob’s voice. All that stuff. Synthesizing our two strengths. Jacob’s also a songwriter and makes amazing songs, but my background’s in bands, and so I treat our relationship as if it’s a band. Taking our two strengths. Jacob’s more conventionally trained, schooled, and knowledgeable than I am. He has a richer depth of knowledge in theory and orchestration. I can arrange that way, but he knows what’s going on. Mine is more reflexive--I don’t want to say auto-didactic because that’s kind of an arrogant term--but learning through mistakes. I think Jacob’s made fewer mistakes than I have.

SILY: What were all the instruments used on the record?

JF: There’s a lot of found stuff. 12-string guitar. I was writing it using this Rosewood Fender Stratocaster that Fender made for me. The 12-string is prominent on “Life At One”. There’s a piano Jacob played. There’s a lot of me coming up with drum beats. A lot of the initial stuff was in the box. I’d roll in my portable studio backstage, I’d have a guitar, Universal Audio space, whatever drums and synths I had.

SILY: What is your background in film scoring?

JF: I don’t have a specific background. From a very early age, I’ve been into film scores. I’d buy them starting when I was 15 or 16. CDs. Pretty obvious releases, but things like Danny Elfman’s Batman score, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. Sort of getting into Jerry Goldsmith. Elfman, Morricone. I like some of the Bernard Hermann stuff. I started studying it from the way I study everything: figuring out chord sequences, the way the melodies work, to the degree I was able. In the early 2010s, I was making a lot of music that was getting licensed for TV. Once Modest Mouse really started touring [2015 album] Strangers to Ourselves, I let a lot of those pursuits wither a little bit. But I’d always longed for a collaboration. A lot of that stuff was done in a solitary way, so I felt very fortunate when Jacob and I met. He was into that idiom but has a range of skills I don’t have. We also really work well together. All the reflexive stuff that happens, the melodies, it’s easy for us to go back and forth and see what we’re into and where to keep going. Neither of us get upset when the other person isn’t feeling whatever the direction is.

As I get older, I realize the value of stimulating multiple senses. I look forward to Jacob and I doing more of this stuff in collaboration with people. The Riley Thompson video for “Life At One” was him responding to a finished track, but in an ideal world, filmmakers would come to us and, in the way Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross work with David Fincher, where he says, “This is the concept for the new film,” and Jacob and I come back and say, “This is the sonic and melodic landscape we’re thinking of, and here are some character cues. Let’s take it from there.” I love being in conversation with people collaboratively and am attracted to the idea of it across media.

SILY: Do you think the idea that the music might not be responding to a finished film would make the score stand on its own more as a piece of music?

JF: The scores that I like totally stand on their own as music. When Morricone passed away, I read that John Zorn had a quote when they were hanging out in the late 80′s or early 90′s, Zorn said, “Don’t do it unless you’re thinking about what the soundtrack record is gonna be like.” The music needs to be cool enough to just be music.

SILY: Tell me about the album art.

JF: Natasha and I sold our place in Los Angeles last year and moved to Ojai. We thought it was a temporary transition, and now it’s somewhat permanent, because we bought a place here. We’ve been in this guesthouse next door since November. I like taking pictures at night with whatever ambient light [there is], so I took that picture from our place. I wanted there to be contrast with this technicolor paint and silver border on the upper and lower parts of the image. Homes are very interesting to me, and there’s a lot of that in The Ice Storm. There’s that shelf people look at from the outside and think, “It could be dilapidated, it could be beautiful.” People think of it as a thing. But there’s this whole other world that only exists inside of there. It’s always fascinating to me when walking by the place. Stories in the shell. I like the idea of a structure having implications. I don’t have an agenda for what those implications might be, but I like the idea that there could be implications there.

SILY: Jacob, when Jim came to you with this idea, how aware were you of The Ice Storm?

Jacob Snider: I had seen it. I don’t know if in our first meeting, it came up that specifically and clearly that this is where the music was going. In fact, it started more as a casual meeting of creative types. When I came over to Jim’s studio, he just showed me the latest thing he was working on without any huge idea behind it expressed to me in that moment. Jim might have been thinking it in that moment, but that day was more, “Alright, I’m working on something, what do you hear and is there something you think you could contribute to it?” It was really organic. Like Jim mentioned before, the best thing you can do when making something is show it to somebody else, because they’re gonna hear it in a different way or they might suggest something if you’re open to it. People can make amazing solitary music, but it will always be just their thing. You bring in someone else, there’s a different energy, a different perspective. 

As it stands, I do love that film. It’s really haunting. Jim and I talked before that it’s not a movie you can watch every week. It’s heavy, and the themes are deep: family, loss, grief, betrayal. It’s a great one. I think it’s a movie that’s cinematic but also has a lot of depth. I think that’s what we’re going for with Small Isles. It has shades of film music but also shades of rock and roll and romantic string writing from the orchestral traditions. I think we’re trying to combine a few things at once, and we’re really curious how it starts to strike people and how some filmmakers respond to it.

SILY: Are you both generally Ang Lee fans?

JF: I haven’t devoured all of his work. There’s plenty I like. But I’m so in love with [The Ice Storm]. I was in love with the book before the movie came out. He treated it so beautifully. As high in the sky as it is for two nascent film composers to say, “I want to work with Ang Lee,” it’s very important to know where you want to go. It may take a long time to get there, but [it’s important] to have a place where you’re headed. That was definitely the case in the early Grandaddy days, and having watched [Modest Mouse lead singer] Isaac [Brock] for as long as I did, I think it was the case there, too. It may not be as specific knowing that I’m traveling in this direction, but that direction can totally change. There can be diversions that knock you off your course positively or negatively, but thinking about how beautifully he treated that material, that’s where I want to go.

SILY: How are you adapting Small Isles to a live performance?

JF: We’re gonna play at least some of this, maybe all of this live. I’m really looking forward to it. Jacob’s only on half this record, and the 5-song EP we’re releasing later this year, he’s on all of. That’s a straight-up 50/50 collaboration. I’m looking forward to the stuff Jacob didn’t contribute to on the record, hearing what he does with strings. We’re still figuring out how we’re gonna approach it. Jacob will be on keys and vocals, and I might sing a little bit. I’ll be on guitar. Our friend Sienna who Jacob went to school with, who’s doing the strings, we’re talking about having her lead a double string quartet. I would like to have a drummer doing some electronic drums and maybe a kit as well. I definitely don’t imagine we’ll totally nail it on night 1. There’s a lot of stuff we have to work out. There aren’t many antecedents in this zone, but something like Explosions in the Sky mixed with Johann Johannsson. I saw [the latter] in 2010 in San Francisco; there was a little bit of strings, various electronics, and he was on piano. That was a very striking performance. So the explosiveness of a big arena rock show with lots of subtleties and nuance that can come from strings and orchestral.

SILY: What else is next for Small Isles?

JF: We wanna finish this EP. I also really love the way a lot of rap and hip-hop people have gotten it right over the years. Using current listening habits and technology to get out as much music as possible. I definitely have the seeds for at least another EP behind this. Once we get this EP done--there’s just a little bit of tinkering to be done over the next month before going into the mixing stage--I want to make as much music as possible and release it. With the spirits of the world willing, I want to get off the ground live and collaborate with filmmakers, dancers, artists, people in the visual medium. I just love making music with Jacob and this type of music. I’d like to have a few releases a year. EP length [or] album length. I have a number of concepts written down. The seeds that Jacob and I have been playing with to make the EP. I was thinking about The Last Black Man in San Francisco when making this EP, and I’d love to collaborate with those filmmakers. Even just being in person, to tell Jacob, “What do you think of this sequence?” and have him respond without dealing with latency issues and dodgy DSL.

SILY: Anything you’ve been listening to, watching, or reading lately that’s caught your attention?

Jacob Snider: I’ve been listening to a lot of pop. I’ve been listening to the Olivia Rodrigo record [Sour]. I think there’s great writing on there, great production. Watching, I’ll just piggyback on The Last Black Man in San Francisco. It took me a while to finally see it, but I had a filmmaker friend tell me I had to, and I loved it. Also the other film Emile Mosseri did the score for, Kajillionaire, the Miranda July film. Reading-wise, I’m about to jump back into Louise Erdrich’s The Round House.

JF: I’ve been digging the Olivia record, too.

JS: There’s some cool strings on there too from the guy who does a lot of the strings for Portugal. The Man, [Paul Cartwright]. They created a string orchestra sound with just one guy layering violin and viola, which is really cool, and that’s what we’re doing with our collaborator Sienna Peck. There’s totally room for that now, the way the world has been so remote. We can’t put 16 players in a room right now due to public health restrictions, so let’s get one person. It’s really hard to do--you can be a great violinist and not be able to layer yourself in a way that makes it sound like a string orchestra. You have to change your position in the room, the way you’re playing slightly, pretend to be three different people sharing a stand. That’s what you’ll hear on the next record.

JF: I just got into How to Change Your Mind, the Michael Pollan book about psychedelics, which I really loved. I just started a book called The Magic Years, which is about child development. I have a three-and-a-half-year-old son, and I’m very fascinated by what’s going on in his brain and what makes him make the decisions he makes. Just how to be a better dad. I am always a religious reader of The New Yorker, every week it comes out. Natasha and I watched The Kids, a documentary [about the making of Larry Clark’s Kids]. When that movie came out, Grandaddy were skateboarders, so it was important to us. But even as a young kid, I felt that it was really exploitative, and the documentary verifies it. It’s heartbreaking. Larry Clark is a really derelict dude. Truly lecherous. But [The Kids] is a beautiful movie. We’ve been watching Los Espookys. I’m really excited about Vince Staples’ upcoming record. My friend Nik Freitas put out a new song. My musical diet’s gotten really regressive in a way because my son is very into the Super Furry Animals record Radiator. It’s all he wants to listen to in the car.

“International-mindedness Is Central To The Cultural Attributes Of Hong Kong”： Wan Pin Chu Who Scored Music For A Chinese Film Nezha Which Earned 700 Million USD!

In 2020, China’s population is over 1.4 billion. In 2019, a film composer and Erhu(二胡)music player Wan Pin CHU(朱芸編) in Hong Kong, about 28 years old, scored music for an epic animated film Nezha(哪吒之魔童降世)which had an incredible gross box office over 700 million USD in China. When things impossible in Hong Kong are possible in the Chinese Mainland, we call it a miracle.

Wan performed Erhu solo for Chairman Xi Jinping and Prince William in the UK in 2015. He won numerous international music competition awards. This young talent was born and raised in Hong Kong. His father is a great Erhuist. In 2013, he finished his undergraduate study at King’s College London and the degree was in Musicology and Composition. Wan then received a scholarship to study Master in Composition for Film, Television and Game in the prestigious Royal College of Music. He returned to work in Hong Kong. Wan said, “Hong Kong is my home. It may grow or diminish, but this hometown remains mine. Where I may work or stay will be insignificant, Hong Kong will be important and always in my heart.”

Hong Kong is facing a diversity of issues that may affect her future. We have no idea how bad it may get. In the 1970s, China accounted for little of the world’s trade. Now, it is the leading manufacturing nation and biggest exporter. Hong Kong is no longer the ‘Gateway to China’. The rapid aging of Hong Kong’s population impacts adversely our economic growth. Our city is characterized by an extremely high degree of reliance on banking and financial institutions. Other trades are fading. Politically, we have an unsatisfactory situation in that the society was divided. The grumbling poor remain poor.

Wan said, “If Hong Kong is a small market, we must look for a bigger sky outside. The sky suggests possibility, optimism and dream. But, I want to say 2 things. Apart from the Chinese Mainland market, we shall not forget the rest of the world. Diversification and globalization, inclusive of cultural matters, are the keys to the cyber future. This explains why my music team often consisted of artists from different places apart from Hong Kong and they were from Beijing, Great Britain and Eastern Europe.”

I looked into the topic, “What is your second point?” Wan talked seriously, like a lawyer which he once wanted to be, “A place must have, if not maintain, its own personality. It must be unique and distinctive in order to be charming.” I gave thought to it, “Does Hong Kong have its own personality?” Wan said, “Hong Kong had been a British colony for 100 years since 1842. It is now part of China, one of the oldest world civilizations. Both Britain and China were rich with history, culture, art and philosophy. But, it may be too stale to describe, almost as a cliché, that Hong Kong is a melting pot of Chinese and western cultures. To stand out and compete, Hong Kong should be less unilateral or bilateral, and more international-minded. For example, Asia is the birthplace of many cultural traditions and art forms and they are what we can turn to. International-mindedness is the ability to be receptive to a multitude of ideas and cognisant of various experiences worldwide; and finally turn it into your own.”

I supported the view, “Film critics commented that Hong Kong films carried ‘Hong Kong whiff’(港味) which was a combination of speed, functionality, open-mindedness, humour and compactness and these were the characteristics of people in Hong Kong.”

Wan concurred, “The same has a bearing on music. The Hong Kong pop music called ‘Cantopop’ attained its highest glory with a huge fanbase reaching the Chinese Mainland and Asia in the 80s and 90s. Why? I believe our city’s music has its own style as to the melody, tempo, music composition and contents. While the mainstream music in the commercial market is going feeble, I can feel the young musicians in Hong Kong are still full of energy and passion to try to break through.”

I asked, “Can you give me an example in which Hong Kong music talents can explore, given our global sensitivity?”

Wan thought about it, “Say in the case of soundscape music (It basically refers to the ‘sound’ or ‘waveforms’ faithfully transmitted to our auditory cortex by the ear forming the musical tune). It is an interesting new area that we can explore even for music scoring in film.”

We have 2 lives. The life we live, and the unlived life ahead of us. Between the two stands resistance. We like to use our present, or sometimes past, experience to define what ahead will be acceptable or not. Some young people in Hong Kong seem lost in that way. Politically, they incline to the past. Economically, they expect a wonderful new world with Hong Kong standing alone on its own feet. Paradoxically though it may seem, reality sadly limits dream more than dream expands reality.

MLee

Chu Wan Pin Erhu performance “Dear Friend, Goddess” acknowledgement-Chu Win Pin https://youtu.be/WiOh_tgHsrU

Chu Wan Pin Erhu performance “Flight of the Bumblebee” acknowledgement-Chu Win Pin https://youtu.be/FQ5Y2uZ47RI

Chu Wan Pin performance with Yao Yueh Chinese Music Association acknowledgement-YaoYueh https://youtu.be/-e-Gz7fmU2Y

Chu Wan Pin Movie Music Trailer acknowledgement-True Movie Trailer https://youtu.be/iNXew6zQXLQ

Chu Wan Pin Movie Music acknowledgement-Hong Kong Movie https://youtu.be/HyUp3VaIEMQ

In conversation with Keith Emerson ...

Keith Emerson (02.11.44  – 11.03.16)

The Father of progressive rock; the man responsible for the introduction of the Moog synthesiser to the ears of the unsuspecting music lover in the 1960’s; and without a doubt one of the 20th and 21st Centuries (to date) most prolific and talented composers of modern classical music.   In a career spanning 6 decades, which has earned him notability as a pianist and keyboard player, a composer, performer, and conductor of his own music alongside the World’s finest orchestras; as well as achieving super success with “Emerson, Lake, and Palmer” - 2014 has been no less eventful for Keith Emerson! With his 70th Birthday approaching, Helen Robinson caught up with him for a very ‘up-beat’ chat about (amongst other things) the re-releases of his solo records, a brand new album with Greg Lake “Live at Manticore Hall”, his favourite solo works, and his memories of the times spent writing and recording with ‘The Nice’, and ‘ELP’.

HR : This has been a busy year for you so far Keith!   KE : Yes! I’ve been up to allsorts! [laughs]

Music wise – what can I tell you?   Cherry Red , Esoteric, have re-mastered and re-released 3 of my solo albums – “Changing States”,  another which I recorded in the Bahamas called “Honky”, and a compilation of my film scores which consisted of  "Nighthawks”, “Best Revenge”, "Inferno”,  “La Chiesa (The Church)”, "Murderock”, "Harmagedon” and "Godzilla Final Wars”.

HR : That must have been a difficult selection to make based on the number of scores you’ve written! Do you have a particular favourite genre of film to write a score for?

KE : Favourite genre?  Boy, well, I just love film score composition, you know? When I first started I had been touring with ELP for some years, and we’d toured with a full 80 piece orchestra but it was just too expensive – we had to drop the orchestra and continue as a trio, which was very upsetting for me.   I was entranced by what an orchestra could actually do, and found that with doing film music I could work under a commission and have the orchestra paid for by the film company!

It’s always a challenge. I think a lot of composers like to write dramatic music. I like writing romantic music as well – I’ve also written for science fiction where you can let your musical imagination go pretty much where you want, but generally you have to cater specifically to the film. First of all I like to get a good idea of who the producer and director is, and who is likely to be cast as playing the lead roles.  I like to read the script – which helps prior to meeting up with the director and producer. When I wrote the music to Night Hawks I was sent, by Universal films, news of a new film to be made by Sylvester Stallone, a new guy at the time called Rutger Hauer, and Billy Dee Williams, also Lindsay Wagner.   It was basically a terrorist film – not the terrorism that we shockingly see today – but back then it was the beginning of terrorism and was quite mild by today’s standards, however it was still sort of ground breaking as far as writing the score was concerned.  

It’s about vision with film score work.

Although really it’s all about vision with anything you’re writing, and I suppose many of the disagreements that ELP had during their time – of course a lot of it came to wonderful fruition – were not seeing eye to eye because we had such different tastes in music. Ubiquitous I would say – we bounded from one thing to another. Just when you thought it was getting serious we’d want to have some fun and do something light hearted but I’ve always maintained that variation is essential.

I think that’s what helped ELP quite a lot – especially live - in any particular set you had the heavy stuff like “Tarkus” and “Pictures At an Exhibition”, for the guys in the audience, and for the females who attended reluctantly - dragged along by their boyfriend or husbands and just sit there -  I mean, I didn’t sit, I was standing and leaping around [laughs] but you couldn’t help notice the glum looking females in the audience wondering when all this was going to be over.

I think when ELP were together as a unit, we managed to meet everybody’s needs. Greg came up with some really great ballads which sort of got home to the feminine heart, like “From The Beginning” – the feminine heart goes “aaah aint that nice” [laughs] and then suddenly you get the bombardment of something like “Karn Evil 9” and it’s like “Oh GOD”!!

HR : I’d like to talk more about ELP, of course, however there’s so much more outside of that unit , which you have been involved with, that has had quite an influence on modern music.   You’ve got an extraordinary and fairly extensive discography, which we can pick whatever you’d like to talk about, but I’d like to start with ‘The Nice’  -  “Ars Longa Vita Brevis” ...

KE : Ah Yes ‘’Art is long, life is short” - Lee Jackson came up with that title - he’d studied a bit of Latin ... [laughs]

Going back to the 1960’s then – I suppose it was ‘66 when ‘The Nice’ formed – originally as a quartet. Drums, bass, Hammond organ or keyboards, and guitar player.  After the first album we decided to move on as a trio, although I did try to find another guitar player.   I actually auditioned a guy called Steve Howe, who was considering getting together with Jon Anderson, and Chris Squire and forming a band called “Yes”.  Steve was much more interested in getting with the “Yes” guys, so meanwhile ‘The Nice’ continued as a trio with Lee Jackson on bass, Brian Davison on Drums, and myself on Hammond and keys.   It was during this time that I was introduced to a new invention designed by Dr Robert Moog, which became the moog synthesiser, so I was the first to introduce that into live performance.  

With ‘The Nice’ we had come out of an era called the underground / Psychedelia.  

I was very friendly with Frank Zappa and the mothers of invention, and they were really far ahead of their time.

Frank approached me one day, because I was composing and playing with the London orchestras even then, and said ‘’Keith - how do you deal with English orchestras? They’re hopeless!”

And I said ‘’Well, they’re very conservative Frank. If you really want to make it with the London Symphony, or the London Philharmonic - if you really want my advice, I think you should try and change some of the lyrics of your songs. If you’re going to get in front of the London Philharmonic and sing stuff like ‘’Why does it hurt when I pee?’’ obviously these guys are not going to take very kindly to it!” [laughs]

I’d actually done Bachs Brandenburg concerto #3 with a chamber orchestra and had a degree of success in the English charts-  around about the same time ,  Jon Lord  [Deep Purple, Whitesnake] was writing his concerto for orchestra too. I’d already written the “5 bridges suite” which I had recorded with ‘The Nice’ at Fairfield hall in London. So basically Jon Lord and I were kind of both struggling with Orchestras and moving along into what came next musically for the both of us –   Jon was a very good friend.

I think round about the turn of 1970, I had noticed what Steve Howe was doing and it was very harmonic, whereas ‘The Nice’ - well we were a bit more bizarre, and I listen back to it now and I suppose I have a slight bit of embarrassment about how ‘The Nice’ were presenting themselves.

And back then I’d started looking at bands like ‘Yes’, and there were a lot of other bands too, who were really concentrating on the tunes and the vocal element, so that’s when and why I formed ‘Emerson Lake and Palmer’ - in 1970 - and endorsed the whole sound with the moog synthesiser. It sort of took off, and became known as what we know today as “Prog Rock”.  We didn’t have a name for it at that time, we just thought it was contemporary rock. I mean it wasn’t the blues, it wasn’t jazz, but it was a mixture of all of these things, and that’s when we went through.

The first album of ELP, [Emerson, Lake, & Palmer] recorded in 1970; we were still learning how to write together as a unit, so consequently when you listen to it, you’ll hear a lot of instrumentals; mainly because there were no lyrics and there was a pressure on the band to get an album out. For some reason there was an extreme interest in the band - We were to be considered as the next super group after ‘Crosby Stills & Nash’, which we certainly didn’t like the idea of.   That album went very well.   Unfortunately the record company decided to release “Lucky Man” - which was a last minute thought – as a single, and it took off. My concern was the fact that, OK yeah the ending has the big moog sweeps and everything like that going on – but how on earth  do we do all the vocals live? Thousands of vocal overdubs over the top and neither Carl nor I sang.   You know - I sing so bad that a lot of people refuse to even read my lips!   And as far as Carl Palmer was concerned he had “Athletes Voice” and people just ran away when he sang! It was a hopeless task of actually being able to recreate “Lucky Man” on stage, so eventually Greg just did it as an acoustic guitar solo.   It was that one sort of Oasis, in a storm of very macho guy stuff, where the women just went [in a girly voice] “Oh I like that, that’s nice”.  [laughs]

So, inspired by that we got more grandiose and put out ‘’Pictures At An Exhibition” – another bombastic piece based upon Mussorgsky’s epic work. For some reason Greg wanted it released at a reduced price because he said it wasn’t the right direction for ELP to go. So we released it for about £1 and it went straight to number 1!  Then the record company called up and said ‘’what are you doing? This is a hit record and you’re just selling it for £1??!!’’, so I said ‘’well yeah it’s a bit stupid isn’t it?” – so when it was released in America it was at its full price and ended up nominated for a Grammy award! ELP had a lot to do to create the piece you know?   We disagreed on lots of issues but in order to keep the ball rolling we just moved on with the next one, which was in fact “Trilogy”.

I thought it was about this time in ELPs life that we had learned how to tolerate each other, how to write together, and how to be very constructive. “Trilogy” is a complete mish-mash, you go from one thing to another; there’s a Bolero, and then ‘Sherriff’ – which is kind of western bar jangly piano playing on it.   I don’t think you could find such a complete diversity buying a record like that these days. We were very much inspired by our audience accepting that.  

Actually Sony Records are going to re release it in 5.1 – they’re doing a wonderful package with out-takes and everything – I’ve just competed doing the liner notes.

We moved on again then, and started the makings of “Brain Salad Surgery” which was a step further.  

After that I worked on my piano concerto played by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and actually it’s still being performed all over the world - Australia, Poland, and in October I’m going to East Coast America to do some conducting – Jeffrey Beagle, who’s a great classical pianist, is going to perform it then, and I’m going to perform some other new works of mine.  

HR : Are you likely to release a recording of it?

KE : Yes I guess it might be ... I’ll let you know. It’s a dauntless compelling challenge. I have conducted and played with orchestras before and I’m very thankful to have classical guys around me who are able to point me in the right direction.   I was never classically trained. I started off playing by ear and then having private piano lessons, and then basically teaching myself how to orchestrate. I’m still taking lessons in conducting and I don’t think I’ll ever get to the standard of the greats like Dudamel or Bernstein – I don’t think I’ll ever be able to conduct Wagner, but so long as I’ve written the piece of music I think I’ve got an idea of roughly how it goes!  [laughs] Thankfully I’ve worked with Orchestras who are very kind to me.

HR : Do you enjoy the performance as much as the writing?

KE : Actually I enjoy the writing more than the performance. I know I wrote an Autobiography called ‘’Pictures Of An Exhibitionist” but that’s the last thing that I am really.   I’m pretty much a recluse. I’ve got my Norton 850 and I’m happy ...

HR : I was going to ask you about the Theatrics on stage – Why Knives and swords? Was there something which influenced the decision to include that as a part of your performance, or was it purely born out of frustration from working with Carl and Greg?

KE : [laughs]  Well you see in the 60s, I toured with bands like The Who, and I watched Pete Townshend; I toured with Jimi Hendrix too, and I thought that if the piano is going to take off then the best thing to do is like really learn to become a great piano or and keyboard player, but I also thought “that aint gonna last with a Rock audience in a Rock situation”, mainly because the piano or Hammond organ  - well from the audience you look up on stage and it’s just a piece of furniture! Whereas the guitar player can come on stage and he’s got this thing strapped around his neck, he can wander up and down the sage, check out the chicks, and he’s the guy that has all the fun.   The organ player meanwhile is just seated there at a piece of furniture like he’s sat at a table.   So a lot of what I did was for the excitement of it, and I suppose to exemplify the fact that I could play it back to front. A lot of my comic heroes like Victor Borg, Dudley Moore – they all came into the whole issue too.

I’ll tell you this ok? I once went to see a band at the Marquee club when it was in Wardour Street in London, and I can’t remember this guys name now, but he played Hammond organ - he was a very narky looking fellow, and went on stage wearing a schoolboys outfit which caused a lot of the girls in the audience to chuckle.   I stood at the back of the Marquee club and watched his performance - a lot of the stops and things were falling off his organ, so he had a screwdriver to keep holding certain keys down, and then suddenly the back of his Hammond fell off – and I don’t think it was intentional, because he looked really quite distraught, but he caused so much laughter from the audience. I went away thinking “there is something there, I’m going to use that” ... I actually thought it would be a great idea to stick a knife into the organ, rather than a screw driver -the reason for this was to hold down a 4th and a 5th , or maybe any 5th, or say a ‘C’ and an ‘F’ or a ‘G’, whatever, and then be able to go off stage, take the power off the Hammond, so that it would just die away -  it would go ‘’whoooaaaaaaaoooooh’’; and  then I’d plug it back in and it would  power back up and create like the noise of an air-raid siren, and of course the drummer and bass player would react to that.  It got really interesting. We actually had a road manager at the time by the name of ‘’Lemmy’’ who went on to be with Motorhead.   He gave me 2 Hitler Youth Daggers and said [best Lemmy impression] “here! If you’re going to use a knife, use a real one!”

So that was the start of all that, and people loved it, and actually Hendrix loved it too –  somewhere in his archive collection there must be some footage of me almost throwing a knife at him [laughs] .

The phase for it was my objection to the 3 assassinations they had in the USA -  JFK, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King -   I’d been to America once and seen how quick the Police were to pull out their guns to a woman parking her car illegally – so bizarre.  The 2nd amendment will not go away, as much as they want it to. I’ll reserve further comments on that but that was really the whole objective. I was banned from the Albert Hall for burning a painting of the Stars and Stripes, which took some time to get over, but everything worked and they allowed me live in California now. [laughs]

HR : What about the Manticore Hall show, also released this year, presumably you kept burning paintings off the agenda there? Was it good to work with Greg again? and then the complete ELP line up with Carl at High Voltage?

KE : No! [laughs], and Yes ... Actually that was recorded in 2010 and was an idea set up by a manager associate of mine, and an agent in California. I met up with them and they asked how I felt about doing a Duo tour to lead up to the High Voltage Festival in London.   They convinced me that it was a big festival ... and the idea was to have ELP on the Sunday night there. So the lead up was a duo tour with myself and Greg because Carl was off with Asia at the time.   It had its ups and downs, but it did eventually work very well and it was a very good warm up to doing that Festival date as the 3 of us.   I don’t think there was any intention of us going any further with it. I think the resulting “ELP at High Voltage” was good and also I think the album ‘’Live At Manticore Hall’’ - although it wasn’t released until this year, because Greg initially didn’t want it to be released at all - is good stuff too.   These things happen with bands, it takes a while for us to appreciate how good what we do is, sometimes.

HR : You’d had quite a break from ELP at that point, KE : [interrupts] I wouldn’t say that I ever take a break, if I can put it so lightly, and it’s not lightly, as to say that it’s kind of like a hobby – if I feel so inclined I will go to the piano and will write a piece of music. If that piece of music seems to warrant being augmented by anyone then I find the right people to do it.  I had a great experience last year of going to Japan and hearing the Tokyo Philharmonic play the whole of “Tarkus” – a 90 piece orchestra – I’ve never been so blown away. I worked with a Japanese arranger on the orchestration, and actually used it on an album which I recorded with Marc Bonilla, and Terje Mikkelsen called “Three Fates Project”,  which actually didn’t make it anywhere and I don’t know why. It’s a great album, very orchestral – I did the version of “Tarkus” on that complete with the Munich symphony orchestra. I changed it around slightly – I had Irish fiddle players coming in – I suppose, really you could refer to it as being World Music – it’s probably a great example of that.   It’s not based upon the ELP solo piano composition that we did on ELPs first album. I don’t think the record companies knew how to market it you know? Was it classical? was it rock? It has the complete amalgamation of group and orchestra. Wonderfully recorded. It really is quite mind blowing. Not that I want to blow my own trumpet!   Maybe if the art work had been a little more dynamic then it would have caught people’s attention. I agreed on it, but you see our names and they’re really small - I don’t think people realised who’s album it was.

HR : Have you any plans to perform it in the UK, or other parts of Europe? Scandanavia, for Blackmoon fans? Any tour plans at all?

KE : The thing is, first of all, that the direction that I am going at the moment is very orchestral. And that does take an awful lot of planning. As I say I’m going to play with the South Shore Symphony on the East Coast of America, but touring with an orchestra, as I learnt back in the late 70s with ELP, is very expensive.  It doesn’t make any money if I’m perfectly honest. If someone was to come up with the cost of shipping the instruments about then ...  but it’s not like dishing out the orchestral charts to an orchestra and then have The Moody Blues come on and play, and the strings do all the backing stuff, you know! This music is the music which I’ve written and really demands quite a lot of practicing.

For instance when I was recording “Three Fates” with the Munich Symphony, in Munich, I was interviewed during the break after the first day by a radio station, and they asked ‘’how do you think its going?’’ and I said “well if the orchestra are still here with me in 5 days time, I should be very surprised” [laughs] .   I remember on about the 4th day , one of the members of the orchestra had obviously heard the radio broadcast.   As and I walked out into the garden at break time, I passed one of the Trombonists who was smoking a cigarette and he said ‘’well we’re still here”...

There is an awful lot that can go wrong, of course, especially with orchestras. The copyist can sometimes write a b natural rather than a b flat, or they can get a whole load of other things wrong – and that’s what happened this particular recording.  

Marc Bonilla actually came up to me on a break and said “I think you should go up to the control room, and look at the score mate, something doesn’t sound right”, so you can imagine the look on my face! So off I go I’m up in the control room; radio through to the rehearsal room and start going through the score and sure enough it was wrong. I don’t know why I hadn’t heard that before, but it was down to the copyists – its the same with writing a book and you give it away to the editor – they can still mess it up – as copyists do with music. And sometimes you’ll get the orchestra, and they’ll just play what’s written rather than put their hands up and say “that doesn’t sound right”, for fear of retribution I suppose – so it is frustrating, but it’s very rewarding.

The Mourning Sun, taken from “Three Fates” 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PcOI8nDDeU

It’s been quite funny with some of these albums that Cherry Red are rereleasing. I happened to give one to my eldest son. I gave him ‘’Honky’’ and he came up to me and he said ‘’here Dad I’ve been listening to the Honky album and it’s really really good!’’  He and his friends are in their 40s now and they’ve all complimented me on it, so that’s the biggest compliment I could have really.

I was recording that album when he was about 4 years old. [laughs]

HR : Is that your favourite then? Honky?

KE : Oh yeah – I had so much fun making that album and I think it shows in it’s humour. It was great. The objective behind it was that I wanted to record with all the local bohemian people - I was living at the time in Nassau in the Bahamas. I didn’t really experience a lot of problems with the black bohemians –  I got on great with them all. There were some great musicians, and I wanted to do a very ethnic album to bring to the attention of the world that we can all get on! I used to drive around Nassau in a limited edition Jeep and kids would run out and yell at me ‘’Honky!’’ and I’d wave thinking ‘that’s kind of fun’.  Then, when I worked in the studio I noticed that the black musicians would all greet themselves with the ‘’N’’ word – we can’t say that now - says in an accent “Yo N ...” – so I thought ‘well if they can do that I am going to call myself a Honky!’ And they were horrified!!  [laughs] So I bluntly spoke to them and I said “listen you guys call yourselves ‘’Ns’’ so I’m calling myself a Honky, and damn it I’m going to call the album that too!” [laughs].  It was a lot of fun.

*** Honky - a derogatory term for a Caucasian person.

HR : We must get something down about Blackmoon – given that this is the title of the Magazine!

KE : [laughs] ELP, Blackmoon.  *sighs* Well  ... I remember from this time that Carl Palmer and myself wanted to have a different producer.

It was all well and good that Greg produced all the other albums but – I don’t think it’s a very good idea for any band ; if they’re involved in the writing and the playing, and then one band member decides he’s going to be a producer too.   You need someone objective to come in and say that they think it’s too long, or whatever ... whereas if you have a part in writing and playing, its obvious that you’re going to pay more attention to it, and Carl and myself really wanted an objective opinion about how to make it work. The producers that we auditioned were very familiar with ELPs work and were really considerate in how they constructed it.  The main consideration - and I think really it was a difficult time because Greg could see that his role as being a former producer of ELP was going to be taken away from him. Whereas for me I felt that Greg’s attention should be more on the writing and the lyrics and other aspects. There is so much that one had to pay attention to when running a band. There are the legal, accounting, and everything else – and above all you have the creative aspect and you really cannot go into a studio and become the producer and wear all these different hats. It doesn’t work, I don’t allow that even on my own music writing.  I’m quite happy to go in and play my music as long as I trust that the guy behind the music desk, and the mixing desk,  are on the same page, know who I am, and what I’ve done before – so at least there is a rapport where the engineer can see what you are trying to do and he will say – “ah you know what, why don’t we try and go for that you did on Trilogy - lets try it!” You have to work with people who understand you and then you can just sit back and work on it , accept a good idea, be pushed to your limits. The thing is with Greg - he felt that he had been removed from the situation which he had most power and pride in. Whereas I think most pride he should keep as the fact that he s a damn good singer and has written some great music. If you want a great team you have to designate to the right person.

That’s why I had Lemmy as my roadie.  If I hadn’t had Lemmy the knives wouldn’t have come out [laughs]. We owe Lemmy a lot! HR : Absolutely.  You two should record a duet!   Which Instrument would you choose? Moog, Melotron, Hammond?

KE : Hmmmmmmmm.  Piano. I’ve always written on the piano. I do have a mandolin hanging on the wall here, which is out of tune at the moment. You wouldn’t want to hear me play this mandolin ...

HR : Because it’s out of tune, or just in general?

KE : [laughs] because it’s out of tune but even if it was in tune I don’t know if it would work. It looks great hanging on the wall though ...

© Helen Robinson -  June 2015 Originally published in Blackmoon Magazine.

[Keith and I were great pals - I miss him <3]

Neil O’Connor, Anti-Hero - Life, Love and Death in Gainsbourg’s L’Homme à Tête de Chou (1976), Conference: Serge G. An International Conference on Serge Gainsbourg, Sorbonne University: Paris

Abstract

This paper explores Serge Gainsbourg’s 1976 album L’Homme à Tête de Chou (1976). The concept album allowed Gainsbourg to explore, transverse and peruses the anti-hero. The albums musical imagery provides to us a collection of mini tome’s that revolves around madness, murder, sex, infidelity and ultimately, death. These themes are, and would become, central too much of Gainsbourg’s lyrical palate, but take a much sinister route on this album. The album took Gainsbourg on a deeply personal quest for expression - to the darker side of baroque pop music. This paper presents the background and setting for the album, followed by both a thematic and compositional analysis of the albums title track Flash Forward and Lunatic Asylum and ultimately examines the albums identity Gainsbourg’s use of tone and timbre to map the anti-heros adventures and mishaps in life, love and death.

I. Background - Rebellion & Modernity

Popular music is intimately embedded in mechanisms of power and ideology. In Noise, a political economy of music, Jacques Attali’s addresses, something that Adorno refuses to do, is to regard popular music vehicle for transforming society;

‘Music is a credible metaphor of the real. It is neither an autonomous activity nor an automatic indicator of the economic infrastructure... Undoubtedly music is a play of mirrors in which every activity is reflected, defined, recorded and distorted. If we look at one mirror, we see only an image of another. But at times a complex mirror game yields a vision this is rich, because unexpected and prophetic’ [1].

This ‘metaphor of the real’ lies in poplar’s music reliance mass reproduction and the stockpiling of commodities. The construction of musical identity within musical expression can be perceived as a form of ritual in that, as Simon Frith points out in Performing Rites, ‘it describes one’s place in a dramatized pattern of relationships’ [1]. In France, like elsewhere, the locale where popular music’s difference is shaped has of course been intensely variable, ranging from the ‘imagined village of tradition, through seedy café and variety hall, the cabaret of nostalgia and regret, the political theatre of national and proletarian anthem, to transatlantic images of modernization and rebellion, in jazz and hip hop’ [2]. During the 1970s, popular music expression and ideology was shaped by the changing mainstreams in American musical styles. Funk, soul and electronic music, via disco, were now becoming part of the ever-changing mainstream. Youth culture during the 1970’s was rooted between the rural-urban split, the degree of educational qualification and the socio- professional status of individuals.

Two musical forms – the copains and two auteurs within the chanson tradition, shaped part of Gainsbourg’s identity: Léo Ferré and George Brassens. Johnny Hallyday created a new cultural form that imagined their social relationship based on camaraderie and equality. This identity failed and ignored to identity the divisions in French society. Ferré and Brassens were more successful. Both expressed resistance to the bourgeois, the Catholic Church and the French state. Ferré’s Les Rupins [The well-off] (1960), examines the empty values of consumerism and questions the French republics ideals, considering them as having lost of meaning. Ultimately, they laid the foundations for future musical anarchists, establishing non-conformity identities on margins of social and cultural fringes.

II. Thematic Analysis

Conceptually, Gainsbourg had already broken the mold with Historie de Melody Nelson in 1971. Gainsbourg created an album that’s focus was narration and that of the narrator, the musical contact seems merely as a supporting act at times. Popular music expression and identity politics are inherently linked, linked to the social and cultural trends of the time. Musicologist Phillip Tagg defines this as:

In this sense, a most effective way of comprehending identity is by disconnecting it from an essence and perceiving it as a dramatic effect rather than an authentic core [2].

The sculpture, The Man with the Cabbage Head, by Claude Lalanne, sat in the courtyard of Gainsbourg’s Parisian home. Gainsbourg’s obsession with the immoral anti-hero dances and exists, in some degree, within most of his discography. It’s only on L’Homme à Tête de Chou (1976) that this obsession truly comes to life. The tail, of Marilou, is of a girl the narrator falls in love with. The ensuing album goes on to describe their love affair and untimely, the death of Marilou, a death that leads to the narrators decline into madness. Not only are the lyrical and musical elements convey this macabre love story but also so does the cover itself. It portrays the darker elements hidden within the grooves. The opening title, of the albums name, begins with Gainsbourg stating that:

‘I am the man with the cabbage head, half vegetable, half guy’ [3].

The confession begins. The opening tracks lyrical theme is almost like a police statement report; how he fell for Marilou, that fateful day in Mac’s Men’s Hairdressers, where he first met the ‘bitch of a shampoo girl’. The narrator continues to open up an inner dialogue. He is at the ‘bottom of his depths’, lost everything to her, including his mind and his job – at ‘cabbage leaf’ – slang for either money (he was a banker) or a newspaperman. It points more so towards the printed matter, as a more reveling line comes as ‘where scandals equal beefsteak’, indicating that he was indeed, a tabloid man. This job allowed him to spend his money aimlessly, for the entertainment of this femme fatale – ‘I was finished, fucked, checked mate in the eyes of Marilou’ [4]. In the end, he is ‘stuck on a beach in Malibu’ or indeed, in the within the beaches of an approaching insanity.

Flash Forward sees the protagonist reach towards the beginnings of lunacy – he catches Marilou in sexual encounter with some rock musicians. The accompanying music allows this encounter to unfold, crashing and bashing about, following the narrator as he lurks towards his lovers misbehaving:

I move forward in the black-

Out and my kodak

Impresses onto the sensitive

Plaques of my brain the vision of a bordel

I feel my cardiac rate

Go briskly to mach

Two tic tac tic tac

Like from an electroshock

He sees this and wonders, is he paranoid? Surely not as he reminds himself that all that he does, all that he sees, will be stored in memory and will come back as flashbacks, until he croaks.

Lunatic Asylum, the albums epilogue, revolves around a trance like didgeridoo motif, like call to the wild, to the insane. In the previous song, Meurtre à l’extincteur, the act of murder had been committed – Marilou’s life ends, her head beaten in with a fire extinguisher, battered under white foam.

Here in the psychiatric ward, he wonders, ponders, on the ‘scrambled messages’:

The little Playboy rabbit gnaws my plant skull

Shoe shine boy

Oh Marilou little cabbage

That rolled me between his fingers like corporal

Sucked me like a kittty

The anti-hero is born; bewildered, deluded, a misfit. His head now truly turned to cabbage, punished and exiled in mental hell. Its sense of morality is cinematic or as Sylvie Simmons in Serge Gainsbourg – A Fistful Gitanes refers to the album as:

Menacing, atmospheric and marvellously mad, part Dostoevsky, part Kafka, part film noir, quite surreal [6].

The albums song cycles are masterfully put together. For the next section of the analysis, the same three songs are discussed, compositionally. Gone is the grandeur used in Historie de Melody Nelson, instead, its musical palate is a wide and varied as the lead characters state of mind. In such, the shifting styles of the album (rock, jazz, country and Caribbean) help define the wild variations of life itself.

III. Compositional Analysis

An intra-musical framework has been implemented in this case to decompose the compositional design and musical organization of L’Homme à Tête de Chou. This process has been referenced and adapted from Stan Hawkin’s Setting the Pop Score and involves examining the following:

Formal Properties: the sections within the song’s overall structure that supports the general progression;

Recording and Production Techniques: manifested in the mix, which is responsible for shaping the compositional design;

Textures and Timbre: colors and patterns that arise from vocal and instrumental gestures within the arrangement and finally;

Rhythmic Syntax: the recurring groupings and metric patterns that communicate ‘beat and groove’ [7]. –

Formal Properties

Formally, Gainsbourg decided that a selection of genres would sufficed toward the many states of mental conditions that our anti-hero goes through; ecstasy, bliss, ignorance, remorse. The song structures are somewhat uncoordinated, stemming from somewhat shorter pop song standard duration – the titles average at 2 minutes 30 (Opening Title) while others act as narrative interludes, barely achieving time to talk or discuss out their content as in Transit a Marilou. Meurtre a L’Marilou, the albums shortest title at 47 seconds, allows Marilou’s death not to linger on; it’s short, sweet, and abrupt. Variations sur Marilou is the album longest title and structurally, the most interesting, as a motif is repeated, built upon and only develops toward its crest seven minutes in. The album concludes with Lunatic Asylum, the most diverse and experimental composition, likes its theme, its formal structure is intense and confessional but in some ways progresses towards a sense of optimism.

Recording and Production Techniques

Shifting production styles are used to map the different scenarios the anti-hero finds himself within. Perhaps not as important as structural or thematic ideas contained with the album, the recording and production techniques utilized in any album can help define its ethereal nature and ambience, what lies beyond theme and aesthetical concept. Recorded at Mercury Studios in London and Paris, English rock themes are played out of the last time, but the production sees Serge for the first time, a reggae song. The production sees an extensive use of synthesizers for the first time. Alan Hawkshaw and Serge carried out arrangements. Hawkshaw had previously worked for KPM in the UK who wrote music for television and film. His arrangements can be heard on songs like Flash Forward in that they employ similar sounds to early radiophonic electronic music. The soft rock and production touches on Aeroplanes make this a standout song. A more common production technique on the album is its little or no cymbal usage – toms and snare drums help propel, like the clock of life itself, pushing and guiding the musical ideas along. This allows the lead vocal to take center stage, as there is limited high-end frequency content to compete with.

Textures and Timbre

There are some very interesting uses of texture and timbre on the album. In Meurtre a L’Marilou, the cymbals signify the sound of the fire extinguisher while the kick drum allows for the pounding heart to bounce toward her death. Life returns and air of optimism prevails in Marilou sous la neige. Here, Serge, lyrically, paints a dark picture of her burial under the snow. In a bold venture of contrast, the music is light, upbeat. The most interesting use of textures and timbre lay within Lunatic Asylum and Première Symptoms. Here, the albums epilogue, the sounds revolves around like a trance through a didgeridoo motif, like call to the wild. The texture and tone of the female vocals at the end of the song envisage and suggests Marilou raising from the dead, coming back to life to haunt our anti-hero for one more time. Textural and rhythmical analysis is summarized here as core musical themes:

Life: L’Homme à Tête de Chou – aggravated, downbeat, strange and surreal.

Love: Marilou Reggae – upbeat and optimistic, bright synthesizers used in major key.

Death: Meurtre a L’Marilou – tense, unknowing, frantic drums.

Rhythmic Syntax

Rhythmically, the album is a rewarding experience. It spans rock, country, disco, jazz, reggae, and funk. What’s evident more so is that some rhythms are used to support themes further. In Marilou Reggae caribbean rhythms allude toward the exotic sexual worlds of far way places. The drum tracks act as bedrock for the narration. Meurtre a l’extinguisher provides the most dynamic rhythmic analysis. It begins with hi-hats suggesting the sound of foam, then is replaced by a beating heart of a kick drum beating towards death, then, ultimately, the rhythm completely falls apart, settling again in the hi-hats, the narrator lost and quiet in his remorse and or satisfaction.

IV. End Note

L’Homme à Tête de Chou demonstrates Gainsbourg’s skill at integrating contemporary influences into chanson; highlighting the fact that it could be global, more far reaching. He allowed it to connect with young generations who understood the rhythms and sounds of international pop music. Gainsbourg’s omnivorous cultural tastes allowed the album to showcase the unstable nature of chanson was during the early 1970’s, ‘illustrating the effects of globalization on so-called traditional genres’ [6].

In classical mythology, the hero tended to be confidant intelligent, with few, if any flaws. In such, a hero tends to exude idealism, courage and morality. The classical anti-hero then, as the title suggests, is a flawed and conflicted character. The anti-hero, on the other hand, is plagued with self-doubt. Our characters hindrances made him prisoner of the mind, his imperfections of thought, of ideals of life, love and death, took him on a journey, full of sensual intentions with the end goal of lust and companionship.

What Gainsbourg has masterfully laid out for us is the story and journey of an anti-hero who completely lacks the skills and capabilities to perform such a feat and ends up failing in the most spectacular and morose fashion. Gainsbourg, furthermore, uses and indeed, manipulates the power of shifting rhythms, instrumental tone and timbre to help supplement and support our anti-hero’s transition into insanity. It’s perhaps the perfect concept album, one where the musical ideas support the extensions as documented above, all swimming in harmony, in the echoes of an untamed sexuality.

References

J. Attali, Noise: The Political Economy of Music, trans. Brian Massumi, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1985.

H. Dauncey & S. Cannon, Popular Music in France from Chanson to Techno, Hants: Ashgate Publishing, 2003.

S. Frith, Performing Rites, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991.

P. Tagg, Black Music, Afro American Music and European Music, Popular Music, 8/3 pp.285-98, 1989.

S. Hawkins, Settling the Pop Score, Hants: Ashgate Publishing, 2002. [6] J. Briggs, Sounds French – Globalization, Cultural Communities & Pop Music 1958-1980, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.

Floors, Restroom, Shower, Kitchen area

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Listed: Joshua Stamper

Photo by Christopher McDonald

After 25 years composing and arranging, Joshua Stamper’s versatility remains as notable as ever. The artist moves fluidly from classical to indie-rock to chamber music and more. While collaborating with acts like mewithoutYou and Robyn Hitchcock or scoring films, he manages to release his own work, too. Reviewing Stamper’s most recent release, Justin Cober-Lake described PRIMEMOVER as a “soundtrack for a particular kind of year in the church life, one with puzzles and rest, beauty and complication.” His work, as with PRIMEMOVER or his new Elements project, tends to be multidisciplinary, with Stamper incorporating an array of influences from outside music. With his breadth of input and output, it's no surprise that Stamper would offer us a list that includes music, visual art, philosophy, and poetry.

Thierry De Mey — “Unknowness, for percussion and sampling: Love Function is to Fabricate Unknowness”

My brother gave me Thierry De Mey’s Kinok for my birthday about twenty years ago. He bought it on the strength of the album cover alone. It’s a record I have returned to dozens of times. “Unknowness” is utterly arresting — a deep and loose sway juxtaposed with startling percussive gestures as unpredictable as ricocheting gunshots. It is all swing, mystery, magic, and space. I feel when listening that I am reduced to sub-atomic scale, where mountains of granite become a gossamer mesh that I move through as a stroll in the park, looking at trees that are freeze-frame explosions.

John Cage — “Water Walk”

4'33" is a popular punching bag for Cage critics. The piece is derided as an adolescent practical joke from an impertinent child of a composer who gets his kicks deliberately wasting audiences’ time. “It's not music” is the common refrain, but the complaint behind the complaint is that it is alienating; that the only way in which the piece facilitates communal experience is that everyone feels on the outside of an inside joke.

When I was younger, I shared this impatience with Cage. Then I came across “Water Walk,” a piece premiered in January 1960 on the popular TV game show I’ve Got A Secret. My view of John Cage and his music were both upended, instantly and utterly. Instead of a preening and pretentious provocateur I encountered a playful and guileless individual filled with wonder; one who took unfettered joy in people, invention, and the sheer fact of sound.

In the space of one viewing, 4'33" shifted from an insolent and self-satisfied prank to a concentrated celebration of community and sound — a wide-eyed invitation to pause, together, all of us here sharing this space, LISTEN, all of us here sharing this space, together, pause. My self-righteousness shattered. All becomes music. I haven't heard anything the same way since.

I’ve since spent a great deal of time with his writing, lectures, poems, prints and music, and wonder how I could have ever thought ill of the man's intentions. It may seem obvious, but Cage taught me that an artist’s own life is the clearest interpretative lens through which to understand their work.

Prince and the Revolution — “I Wonder U” (from Parade)

Sgt. Pepper-esque sound design, kaleidoscopic orchestral arrangements, the hushed voices of Prince, Wendy and Lisa riding on a composite groove of such integrity and force that it sounds like it's forged from steel...

I first encountered Prince’s Parade the summer between my high-school graduation and my first year of college. “I Wonder U” is less than two minutes long, but I was stopped in my tracks. The song feels like the liminal space between dreaming and waking, at once welcoming and dangerous, where multiple musics converge like Charles Ives’ double marching bands destined for head-on collision. Discreet melodies and rhythms and keys bleed in and out of each other, but also exist as vital layers in a larger whole. It's a hypnotizing 3-D sonic Venn diagram.

My decision to major in composition was set.

Jasper Johns — “Regrets”, 2013, oil on canvas

Jasper Johns said, “I think that one wants from a painting a sense of life. The final statement has to be not a deliberate statement but a helpless statement. It has to be what you can't avoid saying.”

“a helpless statement” – I find myself breathing deeper and slower with Johns’ words, grateful for the reminder that before anything else, art making must be grounded in vulnerability and weakness. The hope and the challenge in Johns’ words is its call to distillation, to get to the heart of the heart of the heart of a matter, where there is simply nothing else that can be said. The process of distillation even involves the shedding of all those things we sometimes mistake for the work itself: craft, expertise, training, credential. There’s a threshold that must be crossed, a moment of lift-off where will and deliberation are left behind and the work takes flight on what is inevitable, as involuntary as a cry or a laugh.

Palestrina — “Missa Brevis”

“Painting is time, music is space.” So said one of my brother’s undergrad art professors. Of course, you’d expect the opposite, as space is the context in which painting exists while time is the fundamental warp and woof of music. But my most profound experiences with music are always characterized by new spaces being revealed or created. By “space,” I don't mean some state of cerebral or emotional revelry. I mean real, actual space — with dimensions. A space that’s shocking in its physicality. This happens to me constantly.

My first experience of Palestrina’s “Missa Brevis” was in a choir rehearsal in my junior year of high-school. It was a catalytic event. A braid of interweaving melodies and counter-melodies emerged, enveloping me and everyone else singing, and the room seemed to expand. I wanted more. The vocational pull to become a musician was like being swept out to sea.

Every time I return to this piece, I experience this expansion. The patient dip and rising of every “Kyrie,” “eleison” and “in excelsis” creates its own cosmology, its own dimensions and gravity. Our relationship to time is also a relationship to space; their woven-ness is inextricable. The space-time continuum isn't just a physics thing.

Ann Hamilton — The Event of A Thread

Years ago, I had the opportunity to experience The Event of A Thread by Ann Hamilton at the Park Avenue Armory in New York City. A massive silk that moves like water or vapor, a field of swings, a record stylus, wooden crates of live pigeons, paper scrolls spilling onto the floor, a ceiling peppered with pulleys, bags of words and sacks of sound... It's difficult to describe the piece, in either its scope or particulars, but I became a child.

In Ann Hamilton's discussion of the piece, she says, “It happened because a space was made for it to happen.” The inverse implication of this statement is that if space isn't made, things won’t happen. In my experience, solitude, reflection, exploration and craft are so easily bullied by the crush of life and of calendars, but Hamilton’s observation presses an urgent case for the care and protection of these kinds of spaces to think and puzzle and make. How much wonder, play, rest, and beauty could exist only for want of a place to exist?

So, with that, “it happened because a space was made for it to happen” – my working manifesto.

Mary Oliver — Upstream (Section One: “Of Power and Time”)

“It is a silver morning like any other. I am at my desk. Then the phone rings, or someone raps at the door. I am deep in the machinery of my wits. Reluctantly I rise, I answer the phone, or I open the door. And the thought which I had in hand, or almost in hand, is gone.”

The untroubled waters of a day whose promises have yet to unfold are not untroubled for very long. But the most persistent interruptions are those that come, as Oliver describes, “not from another, but from the self itself.” The resonance for me is deep.

In a 2015 On Being interview, Mary Oliver tells a story about when she learned she had received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry (she didn't even know that her latest, American Primitive, had been submitted for the award): she was at the town dump looking to buy shingles to shingle a roof with. A painter friend of hers came by, joking, “Ha, what are you doing? Looking for your old manuscripts?”. Oliver just laughed and continued looking. When recounting the story to Krista Tippett, she chuckled and said, “...my job in the morning was to go find some shingles.”

To simply be dedicated to the work of the day, to be unmoved and uninterrupted by either rejection or by accolade represents a degree of settledness that I find very beautiful and very challenging.

She was known for writing while she was walking...

Ludwig Wittgenstein / Wendell Berry — “How to Be a Poet”

To continue on the subject of the working life, last night I came across a beautifully concise quote from Ludwig Wittgenstein that speaks to a consistent tension I experience: the urgency to cultivate the solitary and silent spaces required for thinking and working, and a loud and frenetic pull in the opposite direction to “produce” (to what end? - I constantly find myself asking). He simply says: “I can only think clearly in the dark."

This sentiment is echoed in Wendell Berry's proverb-like poem “How to Be a Poet” (wit and wisdom go together well):

“...Any readers who like your poems, doubt their judgement.” [...]

“Stay away from anything that obscures the place it is in.”[...]

“...make a poem that does not disturb the silence from which it came.”

Both Wittgenstein and Berry cut against the grain of popular priorities of content-creation, audience-building, beating the algorithms and cutting through the noise (again, to what end?). Instead, they throw open a window to the generous gifts and glories of a life lived in obscurity.

Andy Goldsworthy

Andy Goldsworthy’s work re-convinced me that art has power. That it is able, for those with ears to hear and eyes to see, to create or reveal a different way of inhabiting the world, of inhabiting one's own humanity. My introduction to Goldsworthy was a documentary by Thomas Riedelsheimer called Rivers and Tides: Andy Goldsworthy Working With Time. I watched tall stone cairns being built on the beach, slowly and carefully, only to be disassembled by the gentle but unremitting incoming tide. I was transfixed by bright yellow leaves stitched together and set loose along a creak, moving like a lazy water snake, wending around rocks and logs and gradually twisting and breaking apart. Balls of bright red dust thrown into the air to form dissipating crimson clouds; delicate stick-curtains collapsing at the breath of a breeze; one-ton snowballs on a London summer day, melting to water and then to air.

As Westerners we tend towards a conception of beauty that is extremely specific, a precise and particular point in time: the crest of a wave, a flower that's just bloomed, a new car rolling off the truck at the dealership, a man or a woman at twenty-five... But Goldsworthy's work does something different. It includes these moments but also folds them into something larger. One begins to see the whole story of a thing, from its initial conception all the way to its inevitable fading or destruction, and all of it is beautiful. This changes everything.

I recognize in myself a preference for the promise of a thing more than the reality of a thing, but as I interact with Goldsworthy’s work my understanding of beauty is slowly and gently disassembled, like one of his beach cairns. It is replaced with a widened aperture, a more charitable and hospitable read of the people and the world around, and I'm welcomed into a more generous way of being.

Ornette Coleman — “What Reason Could I Give” (from Science Fiction)

Jane Austin’s Mr. Knightley says to Emma Woodhouse, “If I loved you less, I could talk about it more...”

All I can say about this piece: I’m fully convinced that this is what angels sound like.

A ZED AND TWO NOUGHTS: The Greenaway Blueprint (’85) by Nathaniel Thompson

If you were a film fan in the ‘90s or early ‘00s, dropping the name “Peter Greenaway” in mixed company could elicit a wide range of reactions. Delights, grunts of disgust, shrugs of indifference – all were common and totally valid. In the ensuing years his name barely registers as a blip anymore, at least in the U.S. where his past six features have received either no distribution at all or a tiny handful of token theatrical screenings. That’s less a reflection on him than the nature of the business, where arthouse films have long since moved away from most multiplexes since he made his biggest splash with THE COOK, THE THIEF, HIS WIFE AND HER LOVER (’89).

The success of COOK inspired a brief wave of theatrical runs for earlier Greenaway films that had been ignored before, most notably DROWNING BY NUMBERS (’88) and THE BELLY OF AN ARCHITECT (’87) – both among his more accessible films and featuring recognizable stars within linear plotlines. Not so lucky was A ZED AND TWO NOUGHTS (’85), Greenaway’s second narrative feature film and a jolting change of pace after his clever, acclaimed murder mystery breakthrough, THE DRAUGHTSMAN’S CONTRACT (’82). Fortunately you can see a nice sampling of Greenaway’s work all the way from his earliest days through the early ‘90s right here at FilmStruck, and ZED is one of his finest albeit more challenging masterpieces.

First of all, it’s worth pointing out if you aren’t English that the title is a play on the spelling of the word “ZOO” (the first thing you see in the film and a recurring motif throughout), interpreted as a “Z” and two zeros (or “nothings”). Those two noughts in this case are twins Oliver and Oswald Deuce, zoologists grieving in their own distinct ways after their wives are both killed in a freak car accident caused by an errant swan. They soon become entangled with the eccentric Alba Bewick (LA GRANDE BOUFFE’s [‘73] Andréa Ferréol), the car driver from the same accident and now a single leg amputee. Along the way the film works in other elements like a sexually manipulative woman named Venus de Milo (PRICK UP YOUR EARS’ [‘87] Frances Barber), time lapse photography of decaying animals and vegetation, taxonomy, and even the creation of the world.

As great as DRAUGHTSMAN is, this is really the film that sets out the Greenaway style in full force and informs what would come for the rest of his career as a director. Most significantly, it marks the first time Greenaway would work with the late, great cinematographer Sacha Vierny, the visual maestro behind such films as HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR (’59) and LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD (’61). It’s a perfect match for the two women with Vierny’s precise, gliding camerawork and impeccable eye for symmetry, which in this case fits the theme of the film like a glove. What may be a little off-putting for some viewers is the cold, removed tone of the film, with performances pitched in various shades of either grief or anger. That’s particularly the case with the two leads, played by real-life brothers Brian and Eric Deacon (who are actually separated one year by birth but could easily pass as twins themselves). Both had already established themselves as actors, with Brian in particular standing out for his work in VAMPYRES (’74) and numerous theater appearances. (Both of them also amassed quite a number of British TV credits.) They’re essentially empty shells when we first meet them, and their attempts to submerge their loss in arcane biological and zoological connections lead them to a poetically macabre fate of their own making. It’s no wonder David Cronenberg cited this film as a major influence on DEAD RINGERS (’88), his classic study of twin gynecologists (played by Jeremy Irons) drawn to a dark state of codependence through the presence of a life-changing woman.

However, it’s the placement within the Greenaway canon that really makes this a film worthy of study and repeated visits. In his prior work Greenaway treated death as something ironic or distant, a quirky footnote in someone’s personal history that can never be fully explained or understood. Here it becomes the dominant force of the entire narrative, informing the actions of all three major characters and becoming an inevitable force in the cycle of inevitable decay. Strangely, in Greenaway’s hands this doesn’t come off as fatalistic or jaded; instead it’s as natural as the frequent nudity or dining scenes he frequently films. So in a sense you can see this film as the first in a cycle of films about death, followed by permutations exploring it as a middle-aged threat to creativity (THE BELLY OF AN ARCHITECT), a bonding method among women dissatisfied with their marital lot in life (DROWNING BY NUMBERS), and a catalyst for classical revenge (THE COOK, THE THIEF).

Of course, there’s no way to talk about this film without mentioning the remarkable score by Michael Nyman, a minimalist maestro who frequently used classic compositions as jumping-off points for his insidiously catchy melodies. While DRAUGHTSMAN was an elegant and aggressive riff on Purcell, ZED goes berserk with the full spectrum of Nyman’s talents from jangling, heavily caffeinated experimentalism for the time-lapse scenes to a haunting, recurring piano and strings motif. The latter “death march” really typifies the Greenaway sound that would come to dominate his mammoth work on DROWNING and COOK, the latter especially building on the grief motif to an explosive degree with the epic “Memorial” that would serve as the film’s overriding music theme. It’s a great cinematic tragedy that Nyman and Greenaway parted ways under strained terms after PROSPERO’S BOOKS (’91), as their partnership was one of the all-time greats and, in both short films and features, yielded a body of work filled with riches and countless surprises. The debate continues over how much Greenaway has suffered since the Nyman era ended, which tends to minimize such major works as THE PILLOW BOOK (’96), NIGHTWATCHING (2007), and THE BABY OF MACON (’93), but there’s no doubt that what they achieved together is something that will never be duplicated again.

Ragtime King

Overview

Ragtime Kings

The Ragtime King

Ragtime King Banjo

Supertone Banjo Ragtime King

King Of Ragtime Scott Joplin

This auction is for a real vintage USA made 1920’s or older Sears Supertone 5 string banjo, model 407, “Ragtime King”, 22 frets, 30 brackets, made by Lange. Condition is good for the nearly 100 years old that it is! No serious problems, sounds good, pretty loud! The metal parts are all tarnished and/or have minor surface rust from age.

In 1974, the academy award-winning film The Sting brought back the music of Scott Joplin, a black ragtime composer who died in 1917. Led by The Entertainer, one of the most popular pieces of the mid-1970s, a revival of his music resulted in events unprecedented in American musical history. Never before had any composer's music been so acclaimed by both the popular and classical music worlds. While reaching a 'Top Ten' position in the pop charts, Joplin's music was also being performed in classical recitals and setting new heights for sales of classical records. His opera Treemonisha was performed both in opera houses and on Broadway. Destined to be the definitive work on the man and his music, King of Ragtime is written by Edward A. Berlin. A renowned authority on Joplin and the author of the acclaimed and widely cited Ragtime: A Musical and Cultural History, Berlin redefines the Scott Joplin biography. Using the tools of a trained musicologist, he has uncovered a vast amount of new information about Joplin. His biography truly documents the story of the composer, replacing the myths and unsupported anecdotes of previous histories. He shows how Joplin's opera Treemonisha was a tribute to the woman he loved, a woman other biographers never even mentioned. Berlin also reveals that Joplin was an associate of Irving Berlin, and that he accused Berlin of stealing his music to compose Alexander's Ragtime Band in 1911. Berlin paints a vivid picture of the ragtime years, placing Scott Joplin's story in its historical context. The composer emerges as a representative of the first post-Civil War generation of African Americans, of the men and women who found in the world of entertainment a way out of poverty and lowly social status. King of Ragtime recreates the excitement of these pioneers, who dreamed of greatness as they sought to expand the limits society placed upon their race.

Image Credit: The “Scott Joplin 1911, The King of Ragtime Composers” portrait featured in this post came from NYPL’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, via the following Black History Month post: Slices of the Tenderloin #3: Scott Joplin. However you enjoy it, whether by playing it yourself on your instrument of choice or listening to others perform it, be sure to crank up.

Destined to be the definitive work on the man and his music, King of Ragtime is written by Edward A. A renowned authority on Joplin and the author of the acclaimed and widely cited Ragtime: A Musical and Cultural History, Berlin redefines the Scott Joplin biography. Using the tools of a trained musicologist, he has uncovered a vast.

Origins of Ragtime Music. Ragtime developed in African American communities throughout the.

Henry King, Director: The Song of Bernadette. For more than three decades, Henry King was the most versatile and reliable (not to mention hard-working) contract director on the 20th Century-Fox lot. His tenure lasted from 1930 to 1961, spanning most of Hollywood's 'golden' era. King was renowned as a specialist in literary adaptations (A Bell for Adano (1945), The Sun Also Rises (1957)).

The following book review by Jeffrey Chappell appeared in Piano & Keyboard Magazine, November/December 1994 issue.

Scott Joplin was a quiet, serious man who composed some of the liveliest, happiest music ever written. The unprecedented standard of excellence that he set and maintained earned ragtime world-wide renown. After the publication of “Maple Leaf Rag” he became known for the rest of his life as “The King of Ragtime.”

Ragtime fell into obscurity with the advent of World War I and with new developments in jazz forms. Its revival commenced in the 1940’s and gathered a momentum that peaked in the 1970’s, establishing its solid place in the repertoire. Contributing to this momentum was the 1950 publication of Rudi Blesh and Harriet Janis’ book, “They All Played Ragtime.” This was the first biography of Joplin, and was accepted as the definitive text on its subject.

In his preface to “King of Ragtime: Scott Joplin and His Era”, author Edward A. Logo design inspiration. Berlin makes clear the necessity of producing a new biography of Joplin. He honors the accomplishments of Blesh and Janis but points out that they were untrained in formal historical research. Much has been added to what was known about Joplin since their book appeared, but Berlin’s own investigations have yielded a significant wealth of new material. As such, “King of Ragtime” represents the best available current knowledge of this subject.

Some know Joplin only as the composer of “The Entertainer” and “Maple Leaf Rag”; they may even have heard his opera “Treemonisha.” These readers will be fascinated to learn about Irving Berlin’s alleged plagiarism of a tune from “Treemonisha” in his “Alexander’s Ragtime Band”; about Joplin’s first opera, “A Guest of Honor”; and about the origin of the terms “ragtime” and “Tin Pan Alley.” The chapter called “The Maple Leaf Rag, 1899-1900” will engross them with its step-by-step recounting of the creation, publication, and sensational reception of Joplin’s signature piece. They may be surprised to find that, in spite of the advanced level of difficulty of his piano pieces, Joplin himself was not always highly regarded as a pianist.

Ragtime Kings

The specialists will be richly rewarded as well. The origins of titles of pieces are ascertained; attributions of collaborative compositions are sorted out; and the chapter called “Freddie, 1904” tells of the existence of a previously unknown second wife. An entire page is devoted to the conflicting information about Joplin’s date and place of birth. Minute details of all kinds are provided, from the price of admission to a Fancy Dress Calico Ball in Sedalia, Missouri in 1898 to the address of Barron Wilkins’ older brother’s cabaret in Harlem in 1914.

Enhancing the author’s clear writing style and organization are numerous illustrations, including photographs of Joplin and other ragtime writers, street maps of places that he lived, musical examples, and newspaper advertisements. These appear throughout the book as their subject is mentioned in the text, which is satisfyingly convenient for the reader.

All but one of the musical examples were typeset for the book. The exception is a photocopy of one page of the printed score of “Treemonisha”, and it is startling. To indicate the sound of women crying, Joplin invented a graphic notation that one would expect of avant-garde composers decades later.

The one known existing letter written by Joplin, an application for copyright for “A Guest of Honor,” is among the illustrations in the book. As interesting as it is to see his actual handwriting, one would wish that a page or two of his music manuscript had been shown. The author relates hearsay reports of a trunk of manuscripts being lost during the “A Guest of Honor” tour; and in his final chapter traces the hair-raising saga of the manuscripts left by Joplin after his death as they shifted hands again and again before being lost. But is every one of them lost? Where are the ones that he sold to publishers? Do any exist in the Library of Congress? The author does not say.

The book also has a sub-text which appears periodically as inserts in a typeface different from that of the main text. This provides background information about side issues such as prostitution in Sedalia, minstrelsy, and theater segregation. One ongoing series compares passages in Joplin’s piano rags to nearly-identical passages in the works of his imitators.

Filezilla server service. In the main text, the author finds that Joplin himself recycled some musical material. Analysis shows that “The Cascades,” “Gladiolus Rag,” “Leola,” and “Sugar Cane” were based on the “Maple Leaf Rag” model. In each case, however, new elements were developed, giving every rag its own appealing identity.

Berlin’s methods of detection and deduction are impressive: no statement or source goes without rigorous cross-referencing and confirmation. Previously accepted “facts” are brought into question and reinterpreted. In his quest to present all the available information, the author at times produces material worthy of a reference book. An early chapter describes Sedalia, Missouri in 1883 as “a good-sized, thriving town.” The ensuing paragraph lists the exact number of public schools, private schools, churches, secret and benevolent societies, paramilitary organizations, newspapers, banks and loan associations, and saloons; as well as the number, names, and racial makeup of baseball teams that formed later on. This is much more than most people would ever want to know about Sedalia, Missouri. Curiously, the other main Joplin residences, St. Louis and New York, are not afforded the same exhaustive treatment.

The Ragtime King

As painstakingly complete as is this volume of research, one finishes the book feeling strangely out of touch with Joplin’s interior life. We know his addresses and what pieces he composed when he lived at each of them with some degree of certainty. But his attitudes about life and his own experience of living it can only be deduced from what others said about him. This is no fault of the author: there are no known surviving diaries or personal correspondence. Joplin’s own words occupy a total of half a page in this book, and most of those are excerpts from his music instruction pamphlet, “School of Ragtime.”

Ragtime King Banjo

Blesh’s writings provided earthier, if perhaps apocryphal, anecdotes. He relates that a friend of Joplin complained at lunch that having to wait for a phone call allowed his fried eggs to get cold. Joplin said, “Look, Sam, if they’re good hot, they’re good cold.” This shows a man with a sense of humor as well as a sense of practicality.

From other reports we can tell that Joplin had a reticent manner. He spoke seldom and softly, but with a refined pronunciation and vocabulary that impressed those whom he met. He was regarded as a kind, pleasant, modest, and inspiring man. Nonetheless, he knew that what he produced was of excellent quality, and in an enterprising way sought the acceptance that he believed was deserved by him and his music.

The excerpts from “School of Ragtime” present Joplin’s defence of ragtime as a music with staying power and high class. He responds to the scurrilous perception of ragtime as being light and trashy by distinguishing it from lesser kinds of music, and by asserting that genuine ragtime was endorsed by cultured musicians. He goes on to admonish players of ragtime to be scrupulously exact with rhythm and tempo when playing “Joplin ragtime.”

Supertone Banjo Ragtime King

This shows a man who was meticulous about his work, who knew how good he was at it, and who took pride in it. It also shows how he struggled to gain respect. Joplin met with opposition to his chosen art form throughout his life. The fact that Joplin was black does not account for all of this opposition, since the black clergy crusaded against his music. Ragtime was seen as degenerate and even dangerous to the moral health of the nation. It was, in fact, music that was performed frequently in brothels. Joplin’s reaction to all of this was an apparent rejection of organized religion, although he was not an atheist, and he seems never to have been married in a religious ceremony. He believed that education was the key to the advancement of Afro-Americans.

King Of Ragtime Scott Joplin

Joplin died of syphilis in 1917 at the age of 49. At the time, he was at work on his “Symphony No. 1.” Among the lost manuscripts supposedly was a piano concerto. Blesh and Janis saw some of the manuscripts; one was “Pretty Pansy Rag”, which Blesh said was unfinished, although Berlin reports that a pupil of Joplin had studied it with him. Will we ever get to hear “Pretty Pansy Rag”? Only time and future research will tell. As Berlin notes more than once, many questions remain unanswered. Until they are answered, we can safely say that “King of Ragtime” is the benchmark in Joplin research.

Adapting Walter Benjamin into Art Practice.

I am at a point where I have to come to terms with a few of the realities in my attempt to merge theory and practice. At the end of the day I am presenting "soundscapes" - a dubious concept and art form (sound recordings) in its past and current state. My fuel for trying something unique and challenging... where the practice is the research... is, in my opinion, the epistemological foundation of graduate research. What do the arts have to offer in terms of knowledge formation? Well, unfortunately not everyone will concede that art is even a small fraction as worthy as the sciences when it comes to this idea. Furthermore, I have raised the question - what would be the purpose of adapting such an enigmatic and complex, unfinished work such as The Arcades project into artistic practice? Not only that what does SOUND have to offer... a niche of a niche, underappreciated by most and dominated by our occulocentric culture.

Walter Benjamin took a unique approach to methodology because he wanted to SHOW the dialectic of the "golden age as hell" or "the new is the old is the old is the new" - not as an ostentatious display of theoretical theatrics. As Susan Buck-Morss points out The Arcades Project has "cognitive and politcal power." This is because he wanted the work to inspire real socio-political change in his lifetime.The real adaptation of The Arcades Project is better suited for looking at real world issues and not ego-driven artistry. My original concept was to look at commodity fetish, especially critical of modern-industrial bourgeoisie practice (of which I may be complicit - could I not also be using art to work this out for myself?)

The problem remains: an automatic reflexive reaction to anything conceptually difficult. Yes analysing the 900 plus pages of unfinished manuscript into a coherent theory is a major undertaking that can’t be summarised so succinctly. However I don’t think anyone is really barred from understanding it when put in perhaps “simpler” terms (frankly I think anyone can crack open The Arcades Project and skim through it to find something to relate to). Once again I recommend Susan Buck-Morss' superb interpretation/analysis. It does raise another concern I have, however.Can we not attempt to engage with complexity without concluding that complexity translates to vagueness? Is doing so automatically overwrought or overly conceptual? I don't believe so. I do think a level of complexity should be encouraged at this level. I am no philosopher but I certainly feel like Benjamin is a little more pragmatic and understandable than Kant and Hegel.Yet, I cannot expect anyone to engage with this text in their own free time and I cannot expect anyone to admire it either. Another question raised: how can one satisfy the "dialectical image" when Benjamin didn't satisfy "the dialectical image". This is about artistic treatement. While text is a language, so is sound, or images for that matter. I am translating the work into a different language. Things will be lost, but perhaps something will be gained. I am also defining it on my own terms. Terms and concepts I have tried clearly define myself (tensions - opposites).

I am working through this. I do not come with everything in a perfectly presented package - this is work, not perfection and this is not a cop-out for weak work. This is the beginning of a process. I understand in his own time Benjamin had his immediate detractors like Adorno... (not to mention traditional academic philosophy departments) yet a case is made that Adorno’s skepticism was off-base as Buck-Morss illustrates in “The Dialectics of Seeing”... he was not getting what Benjamin was doing - attempting to try something not one of his predecessors attempted to do, and not even Marx was trying to shake up history in the same way. I refuse to pigeonhole Benjamin with snap judgements of his "value" as a philosopher..."overrated" or "genius". This has nothing to do with some sort of hagiography for me. This is my attempt at an original work and concept.

As a unique work (as far as I know), this entire project feels as though I am at a loss to converse with other artists. I was really thrilled to discover another sound work adapting Benjamin. It was a relief to read Campbell Edinborough's thoughts on his Arcades Project through his piece: Being Human. A Roving Soul: Walking the City with Walter Benjamin.

QUOTE: When explaining to others that I wanted to adapt The Arcades Project, the looks I received suggested scepticism regarding the text’s suitability.

QUOTE: However, I would like to argue within this article that the method of dialectical analysis developed by Benjamin in the 1920s and 1930s can be used to establish a dramaturgical model that is relevant to participatory art and performance.

From here he has to go on defense as to why performance practice suits the dialectical image. So I take my cue. I think I can make a good case with the inherent dialectics in both the landscape concept (where soundscape is derived) and ethnographic/documentary film. This is why I'm writing a thesis and providing documentation for my practice.

QUOTE: ...Benjamin’s method sought out dialectical images that could hold opposing realities in dialogue.

Am I not trying to work with opposing realities in sound? I'm not sure I'm willing to go further in a defense if this basic premise is not capitulated to. Obviously there are degrees to success in adapting a multilayered concept such as the dialectical image, however if two oppositional soundscapes - of my chosing - are not obvious as ground zero then I'm not sure I will get far.

Is it that foreign and enigmatic if I changed the title to Yin/Yang?... but you see... the dialectical image is so much more than that and its created through a fascinating use of language - a language that is thought provoking and inspiring as potential grounds for artistic expression.

QUOTE: The Arcades Project is full of images and ideas that pull the reader’s attention in different directions in order to establish a productive space for questioning the ways in which our experience is shaped by the material world.

QUOTE: (This) dialectical reading of city space enabled Benjamin to perceive and articulate the tension between empowerment and disempowerment, poverty and wealth, public and private. In recognizing tensions within the images he collected Benjamin found a moment in which the construction of the present could be contextualized in relation to the past – perhaps illuminating lost choices passed over in the process of creating the status quo. In Benjamin’s thinking, when space is perceived dialectically it is no longer experienced as a single material point, but as one possibility within a constellation of historical and social options (Benjamin 2007: 253–64)

YES “one possibility”. It’s funny to work this out in a sound composition since I often find myself confronted with myriad was of editing and presenting the soundscape. There is often the feeling that it could go in so many equally stimulating directions. But are willing to conclude this is too lofty? This can't be shown? I have yet to hear a compelling argument. I am at the beginning of a process, not the end. If someone wants to come along and do this better than myself I welcome it. I can only give the best version as I see it... I have nothing invested in "solving" Benjamin but I do have an investment in keeping things critically engaging for myself and technically challenging (not that I believe technicality is inherently better). I'd rather grow in this way than repeat past success. Did a score of mathematicians fail at Fermats theorem? Again, lest I be caught aggrandising…I bet it was still time worth spending to some, even in failure.

RAINBOW SEASON LP & A Dark Desert Drive with No Lights

It's been a decade since I released a "full length" record. The first time up, I was just learning music production. I had never recorded anything myself before (not entirely true; I had recorded a short film score ((STILL LOVER)) on a portable multi-track), and my understanding of the process was from what I gleamed from observing my friend produce my first record, which was purely an instrumental one. While I had some production credits on that, my role was in composition, instrumentation and performing, not in tracking, or any of the studio stuff associated with recording records. Up to that point, I had been in and out of bands, mostly just playing electric guitar. But the opportunity appeared because I felt like I could do it. The thought just sprang up in my head, and like the field of dreams, it had to be done.  

It was an intense ordeal, since I had no clue, and was left to learn everything myself, from the ground up. But that process taught me an invaluable lessons; that if you want to do something way outside your competence, it can still be done. Dive head first, break shit, learn, and if you're still excited, do it again was the ethos. You have that bounce back energy with youth & there never is anything to lose. Time refines process, but process comes before quality even after refinement. You never really know quality (it's an intangible), but you always know process & that's easier to refine. 

My time in music happened in a similar way to filmmaking. It was the start of the digitalization of media. Computers and soundcards and emulation and plugins and as important, digital aggregators where making the home recording possible, and the barriers to entry affordable. All that was left was the energy, the desire and the doing.

In 2007 I released a short instrumental record, A DAY LATE: INSTRUMENTALS FOR ILLEGAL ALIENS under my project alias at the time, SHANKS AND THE DREAMERS. My friend Ray P headed the production. He had recorded a couple of DIY albums (they still hold up) for his own projects and was a super fan of Steve Albini's style and methodology. We did the tracking in a music space (Bassland Studios) in Santa Ana California headed by OC electronic music pioneer Alex X. from the project of the same name BASSLAND (location where I shot a film called "my break ups into a million pieces"). A DAY LATE had six tracks and it took nearly 2 years to complete. Scheduling the sessions, mixing, tracking, school, work, and balancing my first love, film, expanded the production cycle way past what I had anticipated.

As a son of first-generation immigrants, my life seemed completely foreign and wayward to my parents. They had no idea where I got my interest in music, as I had never played an instrument before, except after high school, while in college, picking up my first guitar while I studied at UCLA.  Though the seeds were planted much earlier, and maybe I'll write about that in a different time. In any case, all was upheaval. It's hard to transpose an understanding now, to how things were. At that time, my choices were limited, because my understanding was completely limited. So, I could only see two viable options. Go back to school, or work at a coffee shop for the rest of my life (this binary seems incredibly naive and silly, but I suppose that's how it looks for large swarms of people). There were no career aspirations in art, even though all my time was spent doing it because I was disconnected from that reality even existing. It was an impossibility. And of course, that impossibility was just an illusion. But an illusion is no different than a reality, without the tools to break through.

In any case, and to the relief & constant campaigning from my parents, I headed back to school for a graduate degree. This experience made me an advocate at dissuading most from going through the same mistake. It is part of my story, and I would not change it in any way, but when asked, I offer the truth. And that truth is that for the majority, there are much better options and routes. 

And that leads me the last full-length record I did many years ago. A month after I shot my thesis project, I recorded my first full-length record under SHANKS AND THE DREAMERS (it had turned more or less into a band at this time), "MY DARLING DIA". It took a few intense months of education, assembling the tools, learning the programs, writing the songs, and tracking.  And all of it was a giant fuck up for the most part. But it was the single greatest music production lesson I ever learned. It was a condensed, intense education, full of "Skin In the Game" and no help or resources other than my partner at the time (Art Toussi) and localized friends in the scene (bands) and of course, the web. To my giant relief, almost every question had an answer on some forum once you filtered through the arguments. And some of the tools I gathered for that project still sit in my studio (music hardware lasts much longer than the digital stuff). Here we were, a local two-piece band out of Orange County Californian, self-producing an entire record, sitting in one of the top NY Mastering Studios, where a single compressor cost more than the whole production & still completely clueless, but feeling accomplished & wild-eyed. Oddly enough, neither of was thought of ourselves as musicians really. We both had wholly different lives with trajections that had nothing to do with music.

Which leads me to this. My first full-length record under my project MIRS, RAINBOW SEASON is coming out later this year. While I've been recording EP's and singles for the last several years under MIRS, I had assumed that a full-length project was out of the scope, as each EP was thought of as my last time recording (interestingly, music had always been regulated as a side project until the last couple years when I dropped compartmentalizing everything).  But, with time and refinement usually bring in something else. Help. And ever since CANYON, MIRS has had lots of help. So what was once a solo endeavor now has the assistance to take the means of communication into another space. 

And that all changed because one thing was missing. The desire to repeat & expand the process, something that I had always wanted to do with this new project, but never allowed myself to go all the way. It was another glass ceiling. That's what they always are. 

It took a long time to get to CANYON and the merging of music & film, but not surprisingly, it's just another beginning.

The Complete Definition Of The Music

Music Portal

Music is a form of art that involves organized and audible sounds and silence. It is normally expressed in terms of pitch (which includes melody and harmony), rhythm (which includes tempo and meter), and the quality of sound (which includes timbre, articulation, dynamics, and texture). Music may also involve complex generative forms in time through the construction of patterns and combinations of natural stimuli, principally sound. Music may be used for artistic or aesthetic, communicative, entertainment, or ceremonial purposes. The definition of what constitutes music varies according to culture and social context.

If painting can be viewed as a visual art form, music can be viewed as an auditory art form.

Allegory of Music, by Filippino Lippi

Allegory of Music, by Lorenzo Lippi

Contents

1 Definition

2 History

3 Aspects

4 Production 4.1 Performance

4.2 Solo and ensemble

4.3 Oral tradition and notation

4.4 Improvisation, interpretation, composition

4.5 Composition

//

[edit] Definition as seen by [http://www.FaceYourArt.com]

Main article: Definition of music

See also: Music genre

The broadest definition of music is organized sound. There are observable patterns to what is broadly labeled music, and while there are understandable cultural variations, the properties of music are the properties of sound as perceived and processed by humans and animals (birds and insects also make music).

Music is formulated or organized sound. Although it cannot contain emotions, it is sometimes designed to manipulate and transform the emotion of the listener/listeners. Music created for movies is a good example of its use to manipulate emotions. http://www.chrisbitten.com/

Greek philosophers and medieval theorists defined music as tones ordered horizontally as melodies, and vertically as harmonies. Music theory, within this realm, is studied with the pre-supposition that music is orderly and often pleasant to hear. However, in the 20th century, composers challenged the notion that music had to be pleasant by creating music that explored harsher, darker timbres. The existence of some modern-day genres such as grindcore and noise music, which enjoy an extensive underground following, indicate that even the crudest noises can be considered music if the listener is so inclined.

20th century composer John Cage disagreed with the notion that music must consist of pleasant, discernible melodies, and he challenged the notion that it can communicate anything. Instead, he argued that any sounds we can hear can be music, saying, for example, "There is no noise, only sound,"[3]. According to musicologist Jean-Jacques Nattiez (1990 p.47-8,55): "The border between music and noise is always culturally defined--which implies that, even within a single society, this border does not always pass through the same place; in short, there is rarely a consensus.... By all accounts there is no single and intercultural universal concept defining what music might be."

Johann Wolfgang Goethe believed that patterns and forms were the basis of music; he stated that "architecture is frozen music."

[edit] History as seen by [http://www.FaceYourArt.com]

Main article: History of music

See also: Music and politics

Figurines playing stringed instruments, excavated at Susa, 3rd millennium BC. Iran National Museum.

The history of music predates the written word and is tied to the development of each unique human culture. Although the earliest records of musical expression are to be found in the Sama Veda of India and in 4,000 year old cuneiform from Ur, most of our written records and studies deal with the history of music in Western civilization. This includes musical periods such as medieval, renaissance, baroque, classical, romantic, and 20th century era music. The history of music in other cultures has also been documented to some degree, and the knowledge of "world music" (or the field of "ethnomusicology") has become more and more sought after in academic circles. This includes the documented classical traditions of Asian countries outside the influence of western Europe, as well as the folk or indigenous music of various other cultures. (The term world music has been applied to a wide range of music made outside of Europe and European influence, although its initial application, in the context of the World Music Program at Wesleyan University, was as a term including all possible music genres, including European traditions. In academic circles, the original term for the study of world music, "comparative musicology", was replaced in the middle of the twentieth century by "ethnomusicology", which is still considered an unsatisfactory coinage by some.)

Popular styles of music varied widely from culture to culture, and from period to period. Different cultures emphasised different instruments, or techniques, or uses for music. Music has been used not only for entertainment, for ceremonies, and for practical & artistic communication, but also extensively for propaganda.

As world cultures have come into greater contact, their indigenous musical styles have often merged into new styles. For example, the United States bluegrass style contains elements from Anglo-Irish, Scottish, Irish, German and some African-American instrumental and vocal traditions, which were able to fuse in the US' multi-ethnic "melting pot" society.

There is a host of music classifications, many of which are caught up in the argument over the definition of music. Among the largest of these is the division between classical music (or "art" music), and popular music (or commercial music - including rock and roll, country music, and pop music). Some genres don't fit neatly into one of these "big two" classifications, (such as folk music, world music, or jazz music).

Genres of music are determined as much by tradition and presentation as by the actual music. While most classical music is acoustic and meant to be performed by individuals or groups, many works described as "classical" include samples or tape, or are mechanical. Some works, like Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, are claimed by both jazz and classical music. Many current music festivals celebrate a particular musical genre.

There is often disagreement over what constitutes "real" music: late-period Beethoven string quartets, Stravinsky ballet scores, serialism, bebop-era Jazz, rap, punk rock, and electronica have all been considered non-music by some critics when they were first introduced.

[edit] Aspects as seen by [http://www.FaceYourArt.com]

Main article: Aspects of music

The traditional or classical European aspects of music often listed are those elements given primacy in European-influenced classical music: melody, harmony, rhythm, tone color or timbre, and form. A more comprehensive list is given by stating the aspects of sound: pitch, timbre, loudness, and duration.[1] These aspects combine to create secondary aspects including structure, texture and style. Other commonly included aspects include the spatial location or the movement in space of sounds, gesture, and dance. Silence has long been considered an aspect of music, ranging from the dramatic pauses in Romantic-era symphonies to the avant-garde use of silence as an artistic statement in 20th century works such as John Cage's 4'33."John Cage considers duration the primary aspect of music because it is the only aspect common to both "sound" and "silence."

As mentioned above, not only do the aspects included as music vary, their importance varies. For instance, melody and harmony are often considered to be given more importance in classical music at the expense of rhythm and timbre. It is often debated whether there are aspects of music that are universal. The debate often hinges on definitions. For instance, the fairly common assertion that "tonality" is universal to all music requires an expansive definition of tonality.

A pulse is sometimes taken as a universal, yet there exist solo vocal and instrumental genres with free, improvisational rhythms with no regular pulse;[2] one example is the alap section of a Hindustani music performance. According to Dane Harwood, "We must ask whether a cross-cultural musical universal is to be found in the music itself (either its structure or function) or the way in which music is made. By 'music-making,' I intend not only actual performance but also how music is heard, understood, even learned." [3]

[edit] Production

Main article: Music industry

Music is composed and performed for many purposes, ranging from aesthetic pleasure, religious or ceremonial purposes, or as an entertainment product for the marketplace. Amateur musicians compose and perform music for their own pleasure, and they do not attempt to derive their income from music. Professional musicians are employed by a range of institutions and organizations, including armed forces, churches and synagogues, symphony orchestras, broadcasting or film production companies, and music schools. As well, professional musicians work as freelancers, seeking contracts and engagements in a variety of settings.

Although amateur musicians differ from professional musicians in that amateur musicians have a non-musical source of income, there are often many links between amateur and professional musicians. Beginning amateur musicians take lessons with professional musicians. In community settings, advanced amateur musicians perform with professional musicians in a variety of ensembles and orchestras. In some rare cases, amateur musicians attain a professional level of competence, and they are able to perform in professional performance settings.

A distinction is often made between music performed for the benefit of a live audience and music that is performed for the purpose of being recorded and distributed through the music retail system or the broadcasting system. However, there are also many cases where a live performance in front of an audience is recorded and distributed (or broadcast).

Winifred Phillips: The Music of the Game

Winifred Phillips: The Music of the Game By Neely Tucker Published April 04, 2019 at 10:00AM

Winifred Phillips is a maestro in the world of video game music. She’s composed soundtracks for major hits such as Assassin’s Creed Liberation and The Da Vinci Code. She’s won industry awards. She’s written a book on the subject. She’ll be speaking this Saturday at the Library’s Augmented Realities Mini-Fest on the intricacies on composing for games, as opposed to traditional film and television scores.

We caught up with her by email earlier this week for a fun Q&A.

Photo credit: Winnie Waldron.

In “A Composer’s Guide to Game Music,” you write that the idea for composing game music came to you while playing Tomb Raider. Do tell.

Since I’ve been a gamer for a long time, I suppose I should have thought about becoming a game composer sooner! But my career had taken me into public broadcasting. I’m classically trained as a musician and vocalist, and my first job as a composer was creating the music for a National Public Radio series called Radio Tales. The series host/producer Winnie Waldron hired me to compose the music for more than a hundred programs that adapted classic works of literature for the radio.  It was a fun gig! But all the while, I never stopped playing video games. And then one day, I was playing Tomb Raider, and the music suddenly grabbed my attention. I remember the light bulb going off in my head. I convinced Winnie to make the big leap into the game industry with me, and it’s been a grand adventure ever since.

Your Top 5 favorite games as a kid, the ones you absolutely wore out:

I was a huge fan of the Final Fantasy series. Played those games endlessly!  I remember spending tons of time with Crash Bandicoot.  Loved Prince of Persia. Sunk huge chunks of playtime into the Civilization games. And of course, the Tomb Raider games hold a special place in my heart, for a lot of reasons.

Which musical instruments do you play?

I play a bunch of different instruments with varying degrees of proficiency, but I’m trained in keyboards and voice. The keyboard is the most useful for me, since it’s the instrument on which I compose.

How did you get your first composing gig?

I actually landed my first two video game composing gigs at the same time – God of War from Sony Interactive Entertainment, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory from 2K Games. Both jobs came out of meetings I took during the Electronic Entertainment Expo – an enormous video game convention and a great place to meet industry folks.

Once more, from your book: “What does a television or film composer need to know about creating a satisfying linear loop, or a dynamic mix based on vertical layering, or a set of music chunks for horizontal re-sequencing….” Okay, so what DOES make for a satisfying linear loop? It doesn’t sound like this is going to involve something as simple as major and minor chords.

You’re absolutely right! It’s a very intricate discipline, and it walks the line between intense creativity and complex technical/logistical procedures. A lot of those concepts will be discussed during my lecture this week at the Library, and I’m really looking forward to it!

A lot of music composition is about math, about chord and key arrangements, a linearity that goes from beginning to middle to end. Does that change here?

Traditional music composition always includes a beginning, middle and end… and sometimes that kind of music composition is necessary in games, too.  When a game is telling a narrative, the music needs to be able to tell that story emotionally, and linear music construction lends itself to that task.  However, when we’re creating music that accompanies gameplay, we tend to break down the music into lots of component parts that are manipulated by the game’s programming. For a gamer, the music just seems to be magically reacting to everything that the player is doing, while still sounding like a continuous composition with a satisfying emotional arc.  But for the game composer, the music is deconstructed into lots of fragments that are designed to fit together in lots of different ways.

 Can you tell us what your studio looks like and where it is? Are you watching the games while you compose, like we see music conductors doing while recording film scores?

Over the years my composition and recording space has grown and changed, mirroring my various interests and obsessions, until its current state as an eclectic and quirky conglomeration of both vintage and modern equipment.  I love everything in there – it all suits my workflow and inspires me to be creative.  My business is located in the New York City metro area.  The studio is pretty comfortable and inviting.  I have a space for live recording, and a separate room where I do my composition as well as all my mixing and other post-production work.  And yes, I make sure that I’m watching video game footage while I’m working, so it’s usually on my largest video monitor mounted high over my workspace. I’ve worked with orchestras before, but those recording sessions take place on bigger soundstages, and then I bring the session recordings back to my studio for mixing and sweetening.  Speaking of orchestras, my music from the Assassin’s Creed Liberation game is going to be performed by an 80-piece orchestra and choir as a part of the upcoming Assassin’s Creed Symphony World Tour, which kicks off this June 11th at the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles.  Touring symphonies like this one are a great sign of how popular game music has become!

Do you typically score the entire game, or just parts of it?

I’ve composed all the music for entire games, such as Assassin’s Creed Liberation, The Da Vinci Code, Shrek the Third, and so on.  I’ve also composed music as part of a team, on projects such as the six LittleBigPlanet games.  Whether I’m hired as the sole composer or as part of a team, the business is pretty similar.  I’m contracted to create a certain amount of music.  The game’s development team briefs me on the technical specs.  We discuss ideas for musical style. Then I get to work.

Read more on https://loc.gov

HIR ESTRIK

Luke Davies is a musician and music teacher from Penzance, Cornwall, but, like many of his fellow Cornish musicians, is based in Brighton. I first met Luke through his playing guitar for Rope, a heavy, slow, melodic post-hardcore band, but rather than talking about Rope, I wanted to focus on his wonderful experimental project ‘Hir Estrik’, in which he experiments with aspects of Neo-Classical, Musique Conrete and Sound Installation. His recent piece ‘Wild Music’ is a wonderful example of Luke’s unique approach to music, with as much focus on time, place, history and environment as on key, tempo or dynamics. It seems to me that the project represents a musician exploring his creative environment and boundaries in a way I rarely feature on Pleiadesounds, and I was excited to pick Luke’s brain about the project.

PLEIADESOUNDS What prompted you to begin a project like Wild Music?

LUKE DAVIES The project set out with the installation ‘In Sea’ which I presented as my final thesis for a master’s degree at Sussex University last year. It was in some ways a culmination of previous projects of soundtracking for media and an analogue audio/visual installation. The development process felt very organic and things just seemed to fall into place as I worked on it over a few months. The technical and compositional aspects, however, took a little longer to get from brain to a more tangible thing. My focus has always been in composition. I would really like to compose both on a personal level but also for various media (tv/film etc). At uni I was encouraged, for the first time, to really explore something new and to follow passions rather than do something overly safe. My first project involved creating a visual ‘documentary’ (I’m using that term extremely loosely here) looking at Cornish heritage using mostly found footage from old archive material. After editing the short film I wrote and recorded a score to go alongside. My second project was an analogue tape based sound instillation/performance. I took proven failed rhetoric from politicians and created a long tape loop from these soundbites. I then distorted and destroyed this loop slowly over time whilst playing and manipulating various other analogue loops and effects to create an increasingly oppressive and uncomfortable piece. The idea was to show how corrosive and destructive this rhetoric is, but unless any sort of action is taken to counter it then it can only become increasingly worse. WM started very much as an extension, combination and development of these two projects.

PS What are some of your goals with Wild Music?

LD To begin with the main goal was to complete my course. That’s not to dismiss the project in anyway, there is a lot of theory underlining the concept, but it wasn’t until a few different thought processes came together that I saw the potential of exploring WM further. That could be in new locations or exploring new techniques to incorporate the environment compositionally. The places and spaces that Wild Music could occupy are almost endless and I would love the chance to see where it could go. I have ideas for woodlands, mountain terrain and more open spaces. I would love the idea of people coming across a sound space in the middle of nowhere and just pausing with it for a moment or two.

PS Do you see Wild Music being more of a therapeutic experience or as an artistic installation?

LD I guess it sits somewhere between the two. It was created as an installation piece to be visited and experienced in person rather than on a screen or through a device. The idea of physically having to go to a natural space is very important to me. However, the driving ideology behind WM was the notion of creating a ‘sort of' therapeutic experience or meditative space for an individual within that environment . I want WM to give the subject a chance to focus on the sonic elements and its connection with the physical space and finally their place in the situation and their overall connection to everything. I did a lot of research on audio/visual stimuli and their effects on our mental health and tried to play on that within the experience.

PS What is the meaning behind the name ‘hir estrik’?

LD It means ‘long absence’ in Cornish. Cornwall holds a very special place in my heart and the longer I have lived away, the more I have craved eventually returning. I guess the use of ‘hir estrik’ could represent a bunch of different things, both literally and figuratively.

PS How do you see ‘hir estrik’ being translated into a live show?

LD This is something I think about regularly, but quickly dismiss. Currently, ‘hir estrik’ and what it is to me is something that I am exploring. I want to be confident that the music I do put out is something that I am 100% happy with. The flip side is that it is often a very slow process. I’m working on getting better at this. To attempt a live version, I would possibly need a few extra hands to really present the music how I would like it. Thankfully lots of my friends play music too, so not out of the question. But for now I am keeping things behind a desk I reckon. I can exercise my itch for playing live in other areas thankfully.

PS What is the significance of naming all the tracks on hir estrik’s latest album, Themes as dates?

LD The tracks are very lazily named after the days that I wrote them. I was at a period of uncertainty in my life; I had just completed my MA, was looking for work in that field or other musical ventures and had a whole host of other life crap to deal with. I wanted to focus my energy onto something positive and used my vast amount of free time to create an audio diary over a few days. Forcing myself to write and finish a track the same day was also a way of me trying to quicken my processes and train myself to be a little less precious over every detail. It was interesting to look back over the tracks a few weeks and months afterwards. The similarities and differences of the tracks in terms of structures, instrumentation etc. really do speak of the way I was viewing a lot of things at the time. It helped me start to break a bit of a negative cycle that I was getting myself into.

PS Both of your solo projects are quite organic, soft and ambient, quite in contrast to the heavy, riffy Rope. How does hir estrik Luke differ from Rope Luke?

LD In some ways I see very little difference between the two projects. They are both ways for me to express myself as a musician, but I take different things from each process. However, there is a stark difference between creating individually and working with others. With Rope, I get to collaborate with the rest of the band, both compositionally and in a live environment. We all play well off each other and that creates a very organic feel to both the music and how we play it. Very rarely would I play the same way each time, my approach is very driven by the moment and the interactions with others. But Rope is very much the sum of its working parts and we all present something different that makes us what we are, something I am a big fan of. With hir estrik, on the other hand, I am completely left to my own devices, and this can be both a positive and a negative. From a composing point, I create a lot more on my own. It just then needs to get past my inner critic, who is a pain. I have way too many unfinished projects on the go at the moment. My approach to both outlets and my end goal remains the same, to make music and be at peace with the outcome.

PS What are you currently working on? What can we expect to hear from you in the future?

LD There are lots of words and plans scribbled in note books for both Rope and hir estrik, it’s just working out when and how to action these things best. With Rope there will hopefully be some new music released and a bunch of shows and short tours throughout the year. We have just started writing and demoing for our third LP and have some other ideas floating around that we hope to be able to pull off. For hir estrik there will be a lot more music slowly appearing. I have plans for a few short EP’s over the year, some more piano led and another more guitar focused. But I will cross those bridges as they become more apparent over time. Wild Music is a project that I hope to play out over a longer period of time. Music as physical art and instillations are a very new area to me, and I am learning a lot as I go. I’m going to look for funding and potential spaces to implement the project. I have a lot of plans for ways to improve the technological aspect and present on a bigger scale, but these things obviously come at a cost. My biggest downfall comes in self promotion, I feel very uncomfortable talking about myself or my work and projects. I guess it would be best to keep an eye on or follow the various social media outlets of each project to see the outcomes of these plans.

HIR ASTRIK

Soundcloud      Youtube        Wild Music 

ROPE

Bandcamp      Facebook       Instagram

Text by Kai Woolen Lewis, Photographs by Monique Poirier

Early Peak Returns

Lynch is easily in the pantheon of the great directors of all time. If Mullholland and Inland didn’t clinch, the new Twin Peaks does. As have been saying from the outset, this was going to be Lynch’s magnum opus and a definitive masterpiece. Though I must say, I didn’t expect Peaks to be this exactly. I read a piece just before Sunday that alluded to what Peaks might look like based on his past few films. Very abstract yet artistic — a true auteur for sure. Now a cinematic genius on par with Kubrik? The visuals alone are striking. All the shots look like his paintings come to life, especially the tree in the Lodge with flesh for brains.… I love the panning across the Lodge floor in the opening, gets the viewer disoriented from the start. I only watched P1+2 Sunday night, watched P3 Monday, and tonight I’m rewatching P1–3 before watching P4. So I’m Peaking out tonight. Might watch again before P5 on June 5.… I read Lynch didn’t want Showtime to dump all the parts at once for people to binge watch. After all that effort preplanning for years and then the long production and edit times, plus the build up of anticipation and keeping a tight lid on any leaks, Lynch didn’t want the audience to blow their load so quick binging. Lynch wants us to watch and digest for a period of time before consuming more. The series is so dense now, I would actually prefer a week in between showings. It will end in September.

On May 23, 2017, at 4:37 PM, Erik wrote:

It's hard core Lynch to say the least… I'll do a pro's con's list.

PRO's We now know what happened to Cooper after ep 23. And it's unexpected and interesting. YES. And a revelation in phylosipy, even though he had Bob in him when he exited the Lodge, We also know his doppleganger is on the loose, which is NOT BOB inhabbited. So which is which?  Muahahah.

Ben & Jerry are still together and in their character. Love Jerry's new persuit. doesn't he say most of the Hotel profits come from his pot sales? Something like that. Next time around, I am gonna watch with subtitles on. Good to see the Log Lady, but sad as well. She looks very sick. Albert looks pretty good, knowing how sick he was.

Watching Catherine so frail takes me right out of the moment. Al Strobel, too. And Carl the Giant. But that works in this story because it’s 25 years later.… There was a nice onscreen pause right after Hawk and Catherine hangup. Lynch lingers on Hawk a good 5–10 seconds, I can’t help but believe intended as a moment of silence to Catherine Coulson — somewhat in line with Judge Sternwood’s aside, taking a brief moment. I bet Lynch intended that while editing, since Catherine had died by then. Just a thought.

Watching Catherine so frail takes me right out of the moment. Al Strobel, too. And Carl the Giant. But that works in this story because it’s 25 years later.… There was a nice onscreen pause right after Hawk and Catherine hangup. Lynch lingers on Hawk a good 5–10 seconds, I can’t help but believe intended as a moment of silence to Catherine Coulson — somewhat in line with Judge Sternwood’s aside, taking a brief moment. I bet Lynch intended that while editing, since Catherine had died by then. Just a thought.

Denise Bryson in charge of the FBI  YES! LOLOLOLOLOL what else can I say? Lynch is free to Paint Nightmare images on screen again. This all surpasses anything in Fire Walk With Me. Much more like Lost Highway and his Short Films. And his revenge on Michael J Anderson (who said, "I want a million dollars, I'm irreplaceable"). the Arm has "evolved" into A Failed Art Project Tree!  LOLOL

Lynch is a painter, filmmaker, and also makes music — Twin Peaks is all of his artistic vision in one medium. This series will be talked about for quite a while, and this singular work will make grand fodder for many film scholars. I think Peaks will stand up to one of the best TV series of all time, mostly because of this recent Series 3.

We are hearing back story about Philip Jeffries (if only Bowie had lived) Helps me believe there is a story thread deep under all this that connects things together. May be hard to follow, but it's there. It's like the X-files on outdated acid. Beautifully shot and sound designed.  But we knew that was always going to be true. Not seeing a lot of Snoqualmie yet though.

Love the drone over the Falls shot… dissolved into the wavey red curtains — like a river flowing. Curtains in Blue Velvet intro, too, right?… I notice the titles have more horizontal spacing between characters, undoubtedly adapted to fit widescreen ratio.

New intruiging characteres..  I am liking most of them, though Coop killed some very pretty girls already..(Marsha Marsha Marsha!!) lol  Sorry I had to. :P   There are so many it's hard to keep track. (how many Coopers are there?)  IMDB has updated the Peaks page with all the Actors and their character names. I printed it out and have it on hand while watching now.

Good idea.… On my iPad. Check.

Findingout what some classic characters have been up to.  Bobby? Wow...that was a twist. Natural place for Hawk to be. Lucy Lucy, a career receptionist. Jury is still out on Jacoby. Expanding the story beyond the Northwest. They did so in the film a bit, and we are not stopping now. We have a LOT of ground to cover to find these new locations.  Coop has even gone into Space...or did he?  WTF?  LOL … A return to Glastonberry Grove.  We saw Hawk up there, but then the story just skips the rest. Did he see the curtins? Did he try to go in? He doesn't even mention it when we see him later (Bobby's Reveal). I could not tell if it was the same place they shot the Grove for the series. I will try to get down there and see if the area has been disturbed. But I see numerous shots in The Return that could have been shot up at Franklin Pond.

I looks to me that Hawk saw the curtains, but knowing the Black/White Lodge mythology knows not to fuck with them. I see Hawk having a significant role in bringing Cooper back, I bet he’s directly involved at some point.… Is that what Peaks is officially being names as, Twin Peaks: The Return? I’ve read that a bunch in reviews.

CON's Where the HELL is all the awesome music??? I mean, for real? you got Angelo hired and you are scoring entire scenes with Dave Brubeck's Take 5?  And the Angelo music we do hear is straight off the Original soundtrack or the Twin Peaks Archive. Very strange. That is what is missing for me the most. I want the drums shuffling under the scenes damn it!  Even the movie had this.

I was thinking the very same thing — where’s new soundtrack music and sounds? I only seem to hear a low bass rumble in varying degrees of difference and tone. And it looks like each part is going to end at the Bang Bang Club featuring a different band each night. I get the idea, kinda a good way to feature new music but hope they are atleast songs written for the series and not cherry picked from existing albums. I mean, if Lynch handpicked each performer to appear then ok, I can tolerate that. But why not a Bang Bang house band that played Badalamenti arrangements each night — original compositions of new music for The Return. There would be a slightly more elevated buzz about the series if Lynch graced us with new Badalamenti music.

Ben & Jerry appear for 3 or less minutes in part 1 and it has nothing to do with anything at all and then they are gone. (same with James and Shelly and Mrs. Palmer, even Leland had no purpose).  Where is Audrey, Norma, Big Ed & Nadine, Doc Hayward and the rest? I will wait patiently, but I am missing the RR. (NO pie or donuts references yet at all, one coffee moment so far)

…One coffee moment so far that leads to death! Or is it the act of sex that leads to death?! I don’t know… maybe one and the same. But I agree, I really wish there is more conventional story line featuring the characters of TP, because that’s what made Peaks, as well — not only the Lodge, Giant, Dwarf, BOB, et al. It was the quirky characters that we all enjoyed. Even if the storyline plays us new ones, I’d like to see a narrative that I don’t have to decipher or wait until the scholarly writings appear.

The Music Video endings. Sorry, but really? The songs and cinamatography are not even all that special. It's like listening to KCRW in the morning.lol  When Julie Cruise was on stage, it was special. The music was special, the atmosphere was special. It was an important moment in the story.  But I guess it's a good way to segway into the end credits, but also seems like a waste of story telling time. Where is Mark Frost's influence and dialogue? We may never know. But it's never gonna be all that quirky funny abusrd character dialogue. It's almost like there are TOO many characters. (Mullholand Drivesh) 

I was thinking this a lot, too, yes. Did Frost sign off on all this? Doesn't he know Lynch is very imaginative and has a penchant for tearing up scripts and shoots whatever he wants?? What’s the script for all the Lynch imagery that has only sound, no dialog?

And his scenes in the Casino? Priceless. But I hate seeing Cooper as a total idiot, unable to speak or compreihend his surroundings after he fell out of the sky.  Oh well, I know he is coming back soon.  So all of this adds up to a Solid A rating from me. VERY strong and VERY engaging. I am on board for the run. Hope we get to watch at least one episode together this summer! PS...Better get your arm checked out.  lol

Let's descend on Dom for a Sunday viewing and dinner. 

On Mon, May 22, 2017 at 7:33 PM, Dom wrote:

So I have now seen each of the 4 episodes at least twice. I am fucking living it. Here are some random thoughts....if you have not seen all 4 episodes you may want to stop reading now. `Those shots of New York City were the most beautiful I have seen taken of NYC. Fucking Epic.

In some reviews I’ve read, there’s been several mentions about the NYC shots, how impressive they are.… Dom, I knew immediately as it was playing out onscreen that you were loving the couple getting decimated! And with good reason —it was easily as terrifying as the White Walkers. 

`All the scenes in NYC are fucking brilliant. `Evil Dale is fucking awesome. Another fucking grand entrance.

I frickin’ luv the new Dale! What a fucking bad ass. Kyle plays him well, too. I totally believe him as (big bad) BOB Cooper. 

`Weird they went out of their way to say James has always been cool because its universally known James is weak sauce.

`Will every episode end in with a musical performance at the Roadhouse?

`What the fuck is Jacoby up too?

`So happy Jerry is in the weed business.

`The first scene with evil Cooper in that trailer with those weirdos was awesome. What did Ray and Darya give to the freak in the wheelchair as they walked by?

`The last 10 - 12 minutes of the 4th episode with Gordon and Albert is maybe my new favorite sequence of all Peaks. Fucking perfect. Fucking awesome acting by Lynch there too.

`The beginning of the third episode with that chick with her eyelids sewn shut was also hardcore Lynch. Love it.

`I honestly felt Bobby Briggs was going to turn to the light side and join the Bookhouse Boys based on the dream his father had about him 25 years ago. I did not expect him to be a fricking deputy though. I wonder if he is a Bookhouse boy now though?

I'm about to go watch some more. I truly hope you two are enjoying it as much as I am. Channel 33 "The Ringer" did a great break down of the return of Peaks today. Worth the listen.

Peaks TV Entertainment Weekly A Twin Peaks Podcast Twin Peaks Unwrapped Twin Peaks The Return: A Podcast

I woke up today and could barely move my right arm. No joke. Its still kind of numb. Thank god its not my left arm or I would be freaked out.

Cant wait for episode 5.

June 4

Redundancy?

4/4/17

Today was the second studio session for our third sound project. There was still some prevailing “syncopation” happening within the dynamics of our group. The main concerns were:

The limited time frame

The limited range of instruments we had despite our large group

The large group size and making sure that everyone gets to have a role in the performance.

How we structure the sound performance to make it captivating and original.

Though we were all concerned about the same things to varying degrees, there was conflict in the different opinions on how we would go about overcoming each of those problems/constrictions. Eventually, through a lot of discussion and testing out both ideas to see which idea worked best, we came to a decision. Keeping with the film structure idea, we decided on a loose storyline to build upon which was someone being chased by an unknown threat. Not a very original storyline, but it’s quite easy to build the tension to it.

From my experience in drama and my love for physical theatre, devising and chorus work I suggested that we could use our vocals and body to add to the sound performance. E.g. whistling to mimic a bird, the sound of breathing, shh sounds to create the wind, tapping of the fingers to sound like rain etc… I think this helps to overcome the problem of the limited range of instruments by adding more ‘instruments’ to our band.

After mapping out the basic structure of the piece, we then decided as a group to split into two groups for each task to more effectively use our time. One group was to develop the supporting soundscape, and the other to start mapping out the instruments. I was in the former along with Bligh and Michael. We would then meet again during the session and combine what each group has created.

Now looking back, I’m not sure this was the best idea because as the two elements are so interdependent with one another, they should be developed together rather than separate. This became very apparent when the 3 of us heard the composition that the latter group had created. We realised that what we had been working on was quite complex and independent from the instruments and thus didn’t really work together. Of course it is obvious now, as how can you create a supporting soundscape if you don’t know what you are supporting yet?

As a result, I feel kind of redundant and almost removed. The second group created this amazing-as composition with the instruments that yes, I had contributed ideas to at the beginning, but had not helped create myself. It’s weird because I feel like I haven’t made a significant contribution to the group now that the soundscape Bligh, Michael and I were working on isn’t going to be as prominent as we thought. It also doesn’t help that someone in my group wants to use my instrument as a drum – which it works quite well as one – but that means I don’t have an instrument myself.

I am contributing in other ways such as I’m helping out with the face paint as part of the costume, and I’m going to see if we can get in some chorus work in with our bodies to make it also visually captivating. However, those aren’t as related to the actual creation of the sound performance so I am worried that what I’m doing doesn’t have hold much importance to the project and completely misses the Main Thing.

That’s just my emotional splurge on how I’m almost feeling a bit lost, like I’m letting the team down. Now, I could be totally blowing this out of proportion in my mind and maybe some sleep will cure that. Either way, tomorrow we still have a whole studio session to rehearse so there is plenty of time to contribute and help with the iterations which is what I plan to do.