well-weathered music

I’ve been getting some interesting feedback from my Stockhausen/Ike Turner piece (the previous post). I sent it out in individual emails to (as Chris McIntyre would say) “my peeps.” Three of my favorite composers answered back right away. Jay Cloidt said he was going to forward it to a zillion people. John King thanked me for the “mash-up,” which got me wondering if there is a difference between “mash-up” and “plunderphonics.” David Behrman said it brought back memories of his first driving experience, in his mother’s 1952 Olds 88 with a Rocket engine.

Then there’s my brother, who asked if the title means I believe in heaven. I was actually referring to the Ives’ piece “General Booth Enters Into Heaven,” which, admittedly, is a pretty obscure reference. But, no, I don’t believe in heaven, except as a metaphor for whatever happens after we leave our corporeal existence. My initial idea was to create a piece representing the post-corporeal spirits of KS & IT as they gradually lost their individual identity and merged together to become part of what my Gurdjieff inspired bodywork teacher used to call “the field.” I don’t mean to get metaphysical on y’all, but that sort of process (body returns to the earth, spirit returns to the ether) does make the most sense to me. It does not, however, lend itself to representation in a 3 minute New Year’s greeting. So I kept the two musician’s identity intact, and found some very interesting nexuses. I made no changes to the pitch or tempo of either piece, yet there are some places where they really do compliment each other. I can only imagine that the young Karlheinz could very well have been influenced by the Ike Turner piece. “Rocket 88,” from 1951, is thought to be the “first” rock and roll song, so it might well have sparked KS’s 1952 ears as he made his first piece in the new “tape music” medium. Is that common and reoccurring Eb, and the equally common and reoccurring 160 bpm triplet really a coincidence? Hmmmm….

My Toronto friend Andrew Timar observed that my piece obviously placed “Etude” within the structure of “Rocket 88″ and wondered, referencing Jim Tenney, what it would sound like the other way; with the pop song placed within the structure of the Stockhausen. A very interesting idea. It is of course always easier to do this sort of creative editing within a clear rhythmic grid than a rhythmic splatter, but it would certainly be an interesting project. Any takers?

Oh, and if anyone might think this kind of work is new for me (there’s no glass!!), may I direct you here; some pre-digital work from 1982.

As Cage knew well, time is the commonality in sound & silence. Taken a step further, it’s easy to see that temporal structure is the commonality in all music, no matter from which culture or even from which species. Generally speaking, it could be said that the ways of organizing pitch is what distinguishes each music tradition, while the ways of organizing time is what unifies them. All sound/silence exists in time and what turns it into “music” or “sound art” is the acknowledgment of some sort of temporal landmark. Mozart’s cadences, Indian music’s “sam,” gamelan’s gong structure are all ways of saying, “we have arrived here and now we’re off again.”

I’m thinking of this these days because I have a job transcribing some of Gerry Mulligan’s solos and have been struck not only by the beauty of his playing, but by the beauty of his compositional structures. One’s not really aware of these structures unless you sit there counting out the beats and the measures. That’s one of the reasons I love Indian music concerts; most of the audience is following the rhythmic cycle with hand gestures. But in most temporal art, structure is much more subliminal. A friend of mine once sped up The Rite of Spring to where the entire piece lasted about 5 minutes. You no longer heard pitches, rhythms and orchestration. You were able to listen to the structure of the piece as a you would a melody. Jim Tenney writes about these sort of perceptual “gestalts” in his Meta-Hodos.

As I wrote out the structure of Mulligan’s K-4 Pacific in numbers of measures (8,1 // 8,4,1 // 8,4,8,4, etc), it reminded me of some of Cage’s pre-1950 rhythmic structures as well as that of some flute music from Borneo I analyzed years ago. Perhaps this says more about my analytic process than it does about these musics. But I do believe that if we expand our perceptual gestalt and eliminate those pesky (and subjective) issues like “emotion” and “content,” we are left with some fundamental truths about perception and communication.

Am I being too simplistic here? What do you think? (You can write comments if you’d like.)

Yup, you read it right. I just found a comment the legendary Woody Guthrie made about one of Cage’s early prepared piano pieces; the solos from Amores. I found it in this very thorough article by Mark Swed on James Tenney’s 2002 performance of Cage’s Sonatas and Interludes (videos below). For me, these quotes were a revelation. I always wanted to do a piece juxtaposing Cage’s writings with Bob Dylan’s lyrics, somehow exposing an oddly shared vision. (I was discouraged by Remy Charlip, who was, in effect, Cage & Cunningham’s rebellious son. I’m easily swayed.) Anyway, I feel I have found a bridge between two music traditions that apparently share little but are both equally important to me. (It’s just that one got gobbled up by Big Business. Guess which one.)Here’s the quote from Mark Swed’s article:

In 1947, Maro Ajemian, for whom “Sonatas and Interludes” was written, recorded the prepared piano solos from Cage’s “Amores.” One evening that summer, folk legend Woody Guthrie wrote a fan letter to the Disc Co. of America, as he listened to the scratchy 78 rpm disc. “I need something like this oddstriking music,” he began in the postscript, “to match the things I feel in my soul tonight.” (The singer also wrote that that morning, his wife, Marjorie, had “given birth to a big 7-pound boy” –Arlo.)

“So let me say my thanks one more time to you, Maro,” he concluded, “for recording up and down for me all of this virgin unsettled and wild wide open sounding dancy music there on the keys of your big piano.”

Quite a wonderful and deeply felt description of Cage’s early music.

Also a very insightful way of closing an article on Tenney & Cage. Jim definitely had a sort of western US, folksy quality about him. He was from Colorado after all. Maybe I’m clutching at straws here, but it also seems Jim & Woody shared a single minded devotion to one’s personal truth, consequences be damned. Comparisons are always shaky, but something just feels right about saying Jim Tenney is new music’s Woody Guthrie. (Which would put Larry Polansky in the role of Pete Seeger. But then who would be Jim’s “Bob Dylan”? Nick Didkovsky?)

You can hear this “wild wide open sounding dancy music” for yourself.

James Tenney plays John Cage, part 1:

part 2:

In my search to find out how to use this wordpress blogging program, I came across video of Laurie Anderson’s United States I-IV (1979-83) and it brought back many memories. Laurie’s early years were tangentially entwined with my very early years. The early ’80s were the hay-day of my 9 years with The Glass Orchestra (1977-86), as well as my time in Toronto (1975-86). In 1980-84 the Canadian government, in their drive to show the world that there was a uniquely Canadian culture, sent the four of us on almost yearly European tours, and we ended up on the same touring circuit as Laurie. We would meet up with her in West Berlin, Frankfurt, London. In fact I remember when John Oswald (he wasn’t in the G.O., but came along a few times) told me that “O, Superman” had hit #2 on the British pop charts (this was ‘81, I believe). We were all pretty amazed a piece that was basically still experimental music had “crossed over” to the pop world. So much for categories.

But it was also exciting for us that it was Laurie’s “O, Superman.” The first time she ever performed any of these (then) very new songs was in a concert at Toronto’s Ontario Art Museum in 1979. She was already well known as a very experimental downtown NY “performance artist,” but she had never performed any songs. Laurie contacted the Music Gallery to see if she could get some local musicians to help her out in this show. Myself and a few other of my friends (including co-G.O. member Marvin Green) ended up playing in the very first public performance of “O, Superman” and some of the other songs that would wind up in United States I-V. During this visit to Toronto, she also came up to York University (where I was still a student) to meet Jim Tenney and present a workshop. (This is totally off topic, but one of the things I remember is that she looked and dressed exactly like Annie Hall; a man’s tie, baggy pants, etc. This was right before her now signature haircut thang. Sorry, I couldn’t resist sharing that meaningless tidbit.) Laurie also dropped by one of the Glass Orchestra’s weekly rehearsals at the Music Gallery during that visit in ‘79. We traded vocal multiphonics techniques. (Ah, the good old days!)

So, anyway, yes, I have some shared ancient history with Laurie and her music. But this isn’t really about her. It’s about these memories of mine that are floating above my eyes, just out of sight. Perhaps everyone’s twenties appear special from the other side of fifty. But from 25+ years away, the late ’70s, early ’80s (my twenties) seem pretty darn magical, at least from a new music point of view. I’m very glad to have that era part of my personal history.

(During this time I was also meeting irregularly with John Cage, touring with Jon Hassell, working with Jim Tenney, pushing the limits of glass music, composing for modern dance, etc., etc. I guess there actually is plenty of material for this here blog.)

Well, after all that, here are the videos (they are not very good quality at all, but still interesting). There is a bit of a German interview at the beginning of the first one, but only for a few minutes.

Laure Anderson’s United States I

United States I-V