sounds like now

I’m not sure how this one flew under my radar for so long, but back in September The Album (Erik Spangler’s pastlife laptops and attic instruments, to be exact) was featured on WNYC’s New Sounds with host John Schaefer. You can listen to the entire show on demand by clicking here. Our bit starts at 15:09.

Hybrid Groove Project’s been busy in the lab experimenting with ways to expand our live sound. Erik’s augmented his arsenal with a brand new melodica and theremin. And I’ve unearthed the effects pedal that’s been dormant in my closet since some performances of James Tenney’s Saxony a couple years ago. The pedal’s best feature is its ability to record, play back, and loop up to 23 seconds of material. And, even better, after recording the first loop, you can keep adding new layers on top of the original. So I’ve been releasing my inner minimalist recently. Here’s a short 4-part bari sax loop I came up with this weekend based on three 3-bar phrases from HGP’s work in progress a firefly in the belly:

The countdown to the 2007 edition of Unsilent Night in Baltimore has begun.

Stockhausen’s passing last week was well documented by the new (and not so) music community. I’ve yet to chime in, but here goes. Honestly, I was scared of Stockhausen. My fear wasn’t based on any personal experience with him—I never met him—but came from when I was learning his composition In Freundschaft.

All the reading I’d been doing to help me prepare for the piece, led me to believe that he was an overbearing control freak. I mean, there are 57 very specific instructions on how to perform most of the material in the piece, leaving little room for personal interpretation. There are even specific directions on how the performer should move while playing the work. What if I played that quarter note tied to the sixteenth note one sixteenth note too long or cheated the three whole notes tied to a half note by two sixteenth notes? I imagined what he would do upon learning of my irresponsibility—maybe seek me out, berate me publicly, and have me arrested by the German police if I ever had the audacity to perform his music again. Irrational and ridiculous, I know, but I once heard a story of him storming out of a student performance of Kontakte at the University of Michigan, cursing at the performers’ inaccuracy and inattention to detail.

But those very things that frightened me—his exactness, precision, and scrupulousness—were what made me admire his work so much. Take In Freundschaft, for example, which is one of his “process planning” pieces, meaning that everything—everything—in the piece is derived from a single formula. Intervals, pitches, duration, register. The idea of a piece controlled so rigidly sounds positively icy. Yet the end result, a work that is full of energy and emotion, belies the oppressive parameters. Perfectionism could be considered an affliction. And in musical composition, that type of control and detail orientation can often lead to negligible sonic results. But, in my mind at least, Stockhausen transcended that stigma, taking a small idea, and spinning it into a meaningful work. Isn’t that what great composers do?

Stockhausen also spoke one of my favorite quotes on developing a musical voice and the meaning of being a musician, which is what I’ll end with:

Musical training has nothing to do with musicality. You can train someone for years in a conservatoire of music and develop the ability to recognize pitch constructions, harmonies, chords, melodies, intervals—all intellectually. But what I call a musical person is someone who can imitate any sound that he hears, with his voice, directly, without thinking about hitting the right pitch, but just doing it. And not only imitating the pitch, but the timbre as well. Great musicians always start off as great imitators. Afterwards, building on the talent of imitation, comes the talent to transform what you hear. Many don’t reach that far, but those who attain the ability to transform, incorporate and identify sounds, they are the better musicians. Then comes the last stage of perfecting this ability so that it becomes almost automatic.

(From an informal conversation with an anonymous reviewer, London 1971. Contained in Stockhausen On Music, Robin Maconie, compiler.)

Tune in to The Signal on WYPR this Friday at 12 p.m. (repeat at 7 p.m.) to catch Hybrid Groove Project in conversation with Signal producer and host, Aaron Henkin. The program will also spotlight the upcoming performance of Phil Kline’s Unsilent Night in Batlimore.

Update: The line-up for Friday’s Signal broadcast is up on their blog.

Question: What does Baltimore really need (besides better public schools, a lower crime rate, and a subway)? Answer: A new music series! That’s why Erik Spangler and I decided to start one. We call it Mobtown Modern. Our first concert takes place this January 29th, and will have a little something to do with our Commander in Chief’s final State of the Union Address. Needless to say, we’re extremely excited and grateful for the support and energy from Irene Hoffman at the Contemporary Museum. Stay tuned for more and be on the lookout for our spring concert too!

Counterstream Radio, the adventurous new music radio station from the American Music Center, is airing a Spotlight Session with one of my all-time favorite composers and collaborators, Michael Djupstrom. Give thanks for the broadcast on November 22 at 9 p.m., but don’t worry if you miss it—there’ll be leftovers on November 25 at 3 p.m. Did I mention that the program will include a performance of Mike’s piece Walimai that we gave at the North American Saxophone Alliance conference way back in 2006? Though it’s not quite Thanksgiving, I don’t think anyone will mind if you have a little taste and sample the cooking.

Good Vibrato, the occasional blog of Ronen Givony’s forward-thinking Wordless Music Series, pairs paintings with all manner of music, including my recording of Piece in the Shape of a Square by Philip Glass. Check it out here.

(a/k/a SLN’s biannual microtonal post.) So I’m practicing James Bergin’s new piece today for next Sunday’s concert with the Boston Microtonal Society, and I’m suddenly inspired to draft a post about learning and practicing any new microtonal piece. Then I think to myself, Wait a second, don’t I get inspired to write a post about microtonal things every time we’ve got a concert coming up (which happens to be twice a year)? Yes. Yes, I do. However, for past BMS concerts, I’ve always been familiar with the works I’m preparing. Not so this time. James’s piece is brand new, and as a result the steps I go through to learn a new microtonal composition were very apparent. Really. It was like reading the instructions on how to assemble a bunk bed from IKEA. So I thought it would be a great service if I imparted this wisdom and (ssssshhh!) shared the secret.

So here it is. Brian Sacawa’s guide to learning a(ny) new microtonal composition:

1. Pick your microtonal fingerings.*
2. Write your microtonal fingerings above the notes.^
3. Practice.†

Just follow these steps and you too can learn a microtonal piece!

Footnotes
* An important first step, and one that must be effected with each new microtonal composition you learn. True, one may have in one’s fingering repertoire many “stock” microtonal fingerings—that one that you use to lower that high C# (1, 2, plus palm key D and side Bb) when you’ve got that note as the third of a major triad because everyone knows that the third of a major triad must be played 14 cents low, a virtual microtone—but in some situations, say like when you’ve got to have three microtones between each semitone, let’s say 16, 33, and 50 cents high/low, there’s a little tinkering that needs to take place.

^ Also an important step that, if effected with each new microtonal composition you learn, is proven to alleviate extreme anger and sudden obscenity laden outbursts.

† Repeat step 3.