Notes from the Underground, A Music Review

Of course I'm biased but it's hard to say that Ben Pierce's new project is anything short of impeccable. I love it. And, anyone who is into well-performed contemporary music will love it too.

There are several reasons why this album is a success. In general,  Kristy Mezines, did a superb job; she's the pianist. A lot of the music on the album is brand new. It's always hard being the first to collaborate on stuff that has never been performed in my opinion. She knocks it out of the park. Also, the very fact that there is so much new music is pretty cool. And even cooler is the fact that one of the new pieces is from University of Arkansas' own Dr. Robert Mueller (Professor of Composition and Theory).

Among the more specific things I admire about this project is the musicality that Pierce brings to every piece on the CD. Whether it's fast or slow, high or low, the music speaks. There is something human and expressive happening at all times.

The second reason why I love this album is the virtuosity presented in various pieces. Moto Perpetuo, op. 2 (Christoskov) shows a very traditional type of virtuosity and showmanship. It is glorious in its own right and Pierce executes it with unbelievable agility and intensity.

What is more impressive to me, however, is the Sonata in G Major (Eccles). 

He performs this, of course, on the tuba, as it is originally written for double bass. I like that it demands extreme dexterity like a "show piece" might. However, it is restrained and controlled; intelligible. Dr. Pierce has separated himself from a superficial approach to technique often heard from tuba artists (even some well-known ones). The way he plays the sonata combines showmanship with elegance and clarity.  Whereas, some tubists play showy things that ostensibly sound impressive: there are lots of notes, it hangs in an extended range, it is fast. Great. But when you listen further, the melody of these fast passages is more percussive than melodious. The musicality and calm is lost. It becomes more of a statement that, "I can play really fast, loud, and high. And you should applaud this because I'm a tuba player and most tuba players can't do this much." I feel that the Dr. Pierce's performance of this sonata makes tubists reconsider what it means to be a virtuosic tuba player. That's what it did for me at least.

This brings me to the third reason why I am a fan of Notes from the Underground. 

The repertoire.

It is both diversified and accessible. "New Music" often comes with a connotation of borderline tonal and just plain weird. For the selections on the album that could fall under this daunting category, they are offset by being accessible through their programmatic nature (Lebedeva) or through deeply lyrical melodies (Mueller). The Mueller piece actually puts me in the mind of Hindemith's sonatas a little bit. For those who don't like Hindemith, the connection I'm drawing between the two is my own opinion.  So give the Mueller piece a chance anyway. It's totally worth it.

There is something for everyone's musical comfort level on the album but also something to extend everyone's palette a little bit. Or at the very least, something that will make you think more highly of low brass solo music and performance.

Professor Pierce will be performing on Tuesday, February 12, 7:30 PM in the Stella Boyles Recital Hall on the University of Arkansas campus in Fayetteville. For more awe and wonder check out Ben Pierce's website. His albums are also available through iTunes.

New Music for the New Year

Just listened to this guy on NPR while driving home from Sam's Club. 2013 just keeps getting better! He has remnants of D'Angelo and Bilal mixed with something new and interesting. Love his voice. His name is José James. He has two albums out from 2008 and 2010; his Junior album is titled No Beginning No End. Preorder on iTunes and Amazon available now. I'm excited.

www.josejames.com

The NPR Story from today available online.

Django Unchained - A Review and Rant

Well, hot damn, Tarantino. You did it and you did it good!

I loved the movie. It was full of passion, romance, action, butt kicking, and most of all good acting. I loved the music too. It was The Good the Bad and the Ugly meets crooning meets the body-thumping bass of hip hop. It was hardly flawless but I think the flaws are greatly overshadowed by the spirit and realism of the story.

The story begins in 1858, Texas, USA. Django (Jamie Foxx) is rescued by a German "dentist" named Dr. Schultz-who is really a bounty hunter. He needs Django's help in identifying some wanted men, as Django was once a slave of these wanted men. The good doctor, in my opinion, carries the show. He's funny, against slavery, and is a smooth talker. Django, was separated from his wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington) and desperately wants to find her because they are in love. A ton of chaos and adventure goes on... you'll have to see it. There is a lot of Tarantino-style blood, where it looks like guts come out of people no matter if they're shot in the arm or the stomach. A bit graphic, but that's Tarantino's fantastical nature at hand.

What truly makes this movie a success is its polemic. Not since Roots has there been a mainstream slave-time depiction on film, television or otherwise. When it came to the true horrors of slave life, Tarantino did not go the route of fantastical and cartoonish. He went the route of what was dark and real; frankly, things that aren't talked about anymore. When I was growing up in middle and high school, slavery was a bad thing that happened long ago. End of story. Django, very realistically, showed exactly the kind of bad that slavery was. It rehashed the severity of 300 plus years that is largely trivialized today; many kids naively conceive black slavery as a bunch of people working in fields, who were sometimes whipped.

So to Spike Lee and other dissenters of the film, get over yourself.

People need to be reminded what it was like. The story is fictional, obviously. But the N word was not.  It was 1858. That's what black people were called back then. Anyone criticizing that lives in a bigger fantasy world than Tarantino. Hot boxes were something I never learned about in school. But they were very real, as were the mandingo fights, mammies, field slaves, comfort slaves, and courtesan (mistress) slaves all depicted in the movie. And frankly, if you research these slave functions, you'll find a surprising "family tree" of how these functions have manifested themselves in today's society. The brutality in Django was nothing short of accurate. It wasn't any less true than the chained slaves thrown off ships during the Middle Passage journeys (Roots).

Was the "Spaghetti-Western" style fictitious? Yes. Was the overall storyline fictitious? Yes. Were some of the guns in the movie not invented until after the Civil War? Yes.

But that's the nature of Tarantino's work: extreme, hyperbolic. Who doesn't want the underdog to have power?  Who can make that a downgrade of the movie when so much of it welcomed an unadulterated depiction of slave life?

In the end, I'm forced to think that Spike Lee is mad for two reasons: He has become irrelevant. His last big hit was He Got Game. He has released movies since then but not with as much positive reception. And I'd like to add that Summer of Sam was a movie that said the F word more times than any movie that had existed until then. It's hard to say that this expletive was even a little bit historic as was the use of the N word in Django Unchained. It is easy to say, however, that there is a lot of unnecessary hypocrisy going on. Spike is drinking some haterade.

In my opinion, the movie was both entertaining and educational. I don't think you can ask for much more than that when so many movies are trash today. If people decide that they dislike the movie, they should evaluate why. It was gory because slavery was gory. It was depressing and cruel because slavery was depressing and cruel. It had an unrealistic ending because Quentin Tarantino wrote it.

If you can't handle the heat, then get out the damn kitchen.

When You Hate Music

That whole saying that goes, "I'll try anything twice," really resonates with me. But it's not really true in any aspect of my life with the exception of music; well maybe beer.

I love all kinds of music. And I'm not lame like many people when they say, "I like everything except country and rap." For one, there are new music styles being created all the time. It would be a feat to listen to all of them and then be able to say you "like everything except for country and rap." What most people mean by that statement is that they like most popular music except for country and rap. I still think it's a stupid answer. But I also know a lot of stupid people, myself included.

I truly enjoy a huge variety of music. If I don't enjoy it the first time, I'll try again; maybe a different album from the same artist or when I'm in a different time in life (while in school vs. while on vacation). If you looked through my iTunes you'd find people and songs played multiple times-country, electronic (a personal favorite), Harry Connick Jr.,  a slew of "indie" artists, 'classical,' gospel, Chicago, heavy metal... For me, I generally have to find the right situation for the kind of music it is. Some is danceable or is for working out. Other music is for road trips, contemplating, or venting. But there is some music that just doesn't fit my life.

Some music I just plain don't like.

Who makes this sad list?

The Beatles.

They are my own personal--and boring--hell. I've tried so many times to like them, to hear them, to love them. I respect them, no doubt. But it's nothing I enjoy. I especially couldn't stand it when two high school marching bands I was teaching in the same summer had "MUSIC OF THE BEATLES" as their shows.

Not when sharing a beer
Not when I'm sad.
Not when I'm happy.
Not when I'm mad.
Not even with green eggs and ham.
I don't like The Beatles, Sam I am.

Enough of my rambling. I just read an article in NPR Music about this very idea. The article (Stephen Thompson) is posted below:

Loved By Millions, Hated By You - What To Do?

Killer Joe

I've been waiting to see it since it came out back in the summer. The problem was it was a limited release or something. I'm not sure what they call it in the movie biz but the result was that I couldn't see it anywhere I lived. Then I moved to Arkansas right before the fall started and... well, it's Arkansas. I had better chance seeing Satan skiing in Arkansas than seeing Killer Joe in Arkansas.

It was released on the On Demand cable systems recently; I watched it last night.

Killer Joe was awesome.

It was originally written for the stage by Tracy Letts. It showed Off-Broadway for 9 months in 1998. The story takes place in small-town Texas; trailers, dogs on chains, cars on cinder blocks, the whole bit. Everything looks and feels a little behind the times even though it is set in the present day: the way people dress is modest, the cars they drive are old and make noise, everybody knows everybody. The family (stepmom, father, sister, and brother) is the focus of the story. The stepmom is a floozy and the dad is an obtuse, brawny mechanic who doesn't realize his wife's infidelity. The daughter is a pretty, teenaged girl who seems slow but is very observant. Her brother, who is older, is a Class A screw up who owes someone money and comes to his family to figure out a way to resolve his debt.

What immediately impressed me was the realism. Where in a Tarantino film, you get real settings and characters that look real. You also get a sort of cartoonish script full of hyperboles and clumsy pauses. It's good. But it feels like a movie. Killer Joe has the real look and the feel. The lines of the characters sound natural and typical. They say humdrum, mindless things. They make meaningless conversation and curse a lot. It made the movie slow but believable. Along with the 'real' aspect of the movie came the violence. It was graphic, yes. But something about the way it was achieved elicited an emotional reaction from me; something that felt sorry for characters or at times indifferent. It wasn't like Tarantino's machine gun Hitler scene in Inglorious Basterds. That was just funny.

The depth of the characters is what I noticed next. The family all had instances when they interacted with each other on individual levels as well as in their family unit. So you got to see each of their versions of affection, panic, manipulation, idiocy, and succumbing to pressures of people and situations.

Matthew McConnaughey gave a totally captivating performance. He was an odd and calculating yet charming and handsome predator. You had no choice but to pay attention to his time in front of the camera.

I liked the use of colors both on the characters and in their environments. They were not necessarily indicative of unspoken plot secrets but they made things visually interesting and supported some of the personality traits of the characters. The cinematography/screenplay was nice because it kept the "play" aspect of the story intact. During the crucial scenes of the movie you could see multiple characters in one still shot, how they contributed to the scene, and how the set aided those reactions.

The movie has surprises. The end is interesting. The music is okay. The only thing that I would change is the presence of the sister and brother's biological mom. The movie was hard to follow at one point, and not for any intentional reason for all I can tell.

I'm sad it took me so long to see it but not regretful in the least bit that I did.

Stories in Music

I've always been a terrible storyteller. I couldn't tell a believable lie if my life depended on it. And I can only captivate an audience if I'm in the middle of humiliating myself. There is something about keeping details and sequences in my head that eludes my presentation. I suppose it has made me honest by default and a pretty strange person to have a conversation with.

In spite of my poor storytelling skills, I almost solely depend on original narratives when performing music. It is a healthy distraction from the neurotic preoccupations that I sometimes fall into. For instance, a long period of rest can be time to listen and understand how to fit into the soundscape around you. For me, I figure out 1,000 ways to piff my starting pitch or count the rests with an astounding inaccuracy. The story keeps me mentally engaged. It's the old "Song and Wind" philosophy. Hear the sound, direct the wind, let you body do what it needs to produce. Sounds like magic and nonsense. And though Arnold Jacobs was indeed magical, he was a genius. There is nothing nonsensical about his pedagogy. It works.

What I find interesting about stories in music is how it works with what we now define as "absolute music." The phrase itself has changed meanings dramatically over time. Today it's thought of most commonly as musical "purists," in the sense that music truly speaks for itself. It is a concept that I neither agree with nor understand. I think it is humanly impossible to hear music or perform it without an allusion, reminder, or out right symbolism attached to something extramusical. Therefore, I think musical purity is malarkey. People have told stories forever. From cavemen to Renaissance poets to country artists. It's apart of our nature.

So, the point?

I think a story is integral to sustaining the art music scene. Sure Power Points and videos did not exist during most of the classical greats' time. But as I've said before in a previous entry, I believe that art music needs to meet people where they are. Again, I don't advocate the abandonment of traditional performance. But if art music is virtually suffering for lack of public interest, then by God CREATE SOME! People like to see things. A simple image shown for every movement of a symphony, a silent short film for a tone poem. Case and point: a lot of John Cage's music sounds ridiculous by itself. And not in a good way. But when paired with his partner's choreography (Merce Cunningham), it makes a lot of sense. Unfortunately what I am suggesting is extreme, despite the fact that art has always been on the edge of cultural normalcy. But something more "realistic" that could be attractive to intimidated people is comprehensive program notes.

I hate nothing more than going to a concert and starting to read what I think will be information about the music I hear. Instead, I mostly get a detailed pedigree of the composer (don't care), how long the piece took to compose (don't care), info about the composer's family (don't care). And if I don't care about this stuff, what are the chances that someone who is already questioning the experience cares?

I know some conducting professors who think the idea of a "listening map" style program note is a silly thing to produce for a concert. I am of the mind, however, that if people in need of a listening map constitute your patronage, then give it to them. At the very least, give them a choice at the concert; two styles of concert programs. There needs to be incentive to come back again, an assurance that someone is looking out for the layperson. The layperson used to be the one at the concert. Now the layperson watches reality television and on demand movies. While all of it isn't "high brow," it's entertaining. The intimidation factor is removed by the comfort of knowing what to expect on some level.  Art music settings on the other hand are 100% mystery to laypeople which is equivalent to 100% terrifying. Who wants to subject themselves to that kind of feeling, especially when no one is around to help a person out of it?

Scales

It doesn't matter if they're in triplets, sixteenth notes, quarters or good ol' solo and ensemble style. I hate scales. I'm nearly 24 years old and have only recently understood how they are valuable to me. Ostensibly, they seem useless to a tuba player. Most band and orchestra music for tuba players is moderately challenging at best; that is, in terms of fast passages (with the possible exception of circus marches). "Hard" music in large ensemble settings is often playing the range of the instrument in a short amount of time (Berlioz loves this), masking breaths, playing lower and louder. Knowing this, scales seem like stretching your legs for exercise even though you're confined to a wheel chair. It may seem extreme, but you get the idea.

But something has changed my mind. It's solo music. While a lot of tuba music is hardly tonal or scalar, it can be fast, scatter brained, and precise. Playing scales provides a deftness to fingers that is otherwise not demanded of me in the ensemble music that I play. Still, what I struggle with is legitimizing it to students, especially beginners. Ultimately it will help them should they continue to play music long into their future. But what if they really don't care? And often enough, this is the case. Or even more often a student thinks that a scale means Bb to Bb and back. Changing that mindset is both annoying and makes me wonder what some music teachers are actually doing in their classrooms. As much as I find value in them, it still isn't that much fun. It's tedious, sometimes soul-destroying work. Or at least that's what it feels like to me most of the time. But my reward is what I get when playing tuba rep. What's the reward for an 11 or 12 year old?

Tiny Desk Concerts

Never been into podcasts until now. And excuse my tardiness, but this is awesome. It's free and it's totally diverse in the artists. I mean, what else would you expect from NPR? If you don't know, now you know.

Reinventing Hip Hop

James "Dilla" Yancey, was a hip-hop genius. While he has passed on, his music continues to inspire people all over the country, Miguel Atwood-Ferguson included.

Miguel is brilliant in his own right. I love his orchestral settings of J. Dilla's music, his raw passion, and his intellect. The guy is really in love with music and good at spreading that love. People should know who both of these guys are. Below is an example of their musical paths crossing. I would love if I could be apart of something like this.

Pop Culture and Why I Like It Lately

Lately, I've been more and more interested in pop culture, which is weird because I'm a bit of an old soul when it comes to how I view things. But on second thought it's not weird because pop culture has been gradually moving backwards in time. I don't know which came first, but it's happening in mainstream fashion too. I'm saying all this to say, I LOVE IT.

Take this guy for example:


Nerlens Noelle. He was born in 1994. In 1994, I was 5 years old and I was sporting this exact same haircut, the high-top fade. It wasn't as high and I didn't have tattoos. But the idea was there. When I look at this, I get nostalgic. I don't know if nostalgia is the case for the popularity of this kind of stuff but I wouldn't be surprised. I mean, things are totally upside down in our country. Perhaps the past is a comforting thing to think about and be reminded of. Nerlens isn't the only one nodding to fads that were popular decades ago. Rhianna's last SNL performance was a blast from the past. So is Kesha's latest video for her single Die Young. And sorry University of Arkansas girls, the leggings, side pony tails, and oversized shirts you took from your dads' closets were around long before your parents even thought of having you.

None of this is really my main point. What I've enjoyed most about pop culture's obsession with resurrecting the past is the change of music sounds and practices. Pop artists from about the mid 70s on to today have been decidedly futuristic, pushing the limits of synthesizers, sound engineering, and live performance production. The last 10 years have been shifting back to something my "old soul" really values.

Music.

I think the technological advances for the sake of music hat have been made over the decades are great. But the robotic precision and auto tuning of popular artists supposedly "expressing themselves" left a lot to be desired for me. Today, the fallibility and rawness of human nature is coming back to music. Adele is a wonderful example of this. Her music is beautiful but simplistic. It allows your ears to hone in on the words and appreciate the emotions in her voice. Who cares that it isn't immaculately tuned from beginning to end. I don't. It sounds good. It sounds real. I feel connected.

Another aspect of reviving the past that I love is the sound that is infiltrating popular music. Beyonce's most recent album, 4, is overflowing with aesthetics of Prince, Whitney Houston, and old R&B girl groups. The music on the album reaches beyond simple influence and has turned into a full on reincarnation. Party is one of her more successful singles from the album and it sounds like something right off of an SWV album. And if you've seen the video, it looks like it was filmed about 20 years ago.  It's incredible. What I like most about the song is that the music backs up Beyonce's voice much in the way that Adele's music backs up hers. The beat does not constitute the most important part of the song. The singer does.

On Beyonce's single Schoolin Life,  you can hear the rhythm, guitar, and keyboard of Prince and vocals that sound like it was written for Whitney Houston herself. While I wasn't really around when either of these people were at their heights, the music takes me back to the sounds that my mom enjoyed while riding with her in the car. It sounds good. I feel connected.

One of the last things I really enjoy about this music trend is the instruments. More and more artists are utilizing the talents of real musicians. Less famous, more independent artists have done this for years. But it's been a while for pop artists to have bands with live brass or orchestras with live strings. Beyonce comes to mind because of her all female band Suga Mamas. But rappers are on this wagon. Kanye did a performance with ballerinas and orchestra about a year ago on SNL of his song Runaway. I think highly visible people like this are putting instrumentalists back on the map. They are making it possible for the revival of second line style brass bands to be successful. Opening up the door for kids to ask what that cool thing the dude is blowing on behind Jay Z. It makes kids demand that they be just like the genius sax player (Clarence Clemons) in Lady Gaga's song. Pop music is reaching to the past to transform itself.

Meanwhile, us "art musicians" are starving for work and playing for quarter full concert houses.

Pop artists are opening doors for art music, the music I love, to become relevant again. This is why I really love pop culture today. It is a sort of connecting vehicle between the present and past. It gives a reason for young folks like myself and those even younger to talk about things that would have otherwise been boring, out of date, and uncool. Face it, art music is the ultimate resurrection act. 200 year old music played for audiences who can remember FDR's Fireside Chats.

One of my strongest beliefs in education is meeting students where they are. If we "high art" musicians don't meet potential audiences  where they are, we won't be dying anymore. We'll be dead. No more morbid resurrections. Just gone.

I think people might like what we do musically a lot more if we showed an interest in what they do musically. It doesn't mean that we play "pop classical" music on every concert we program. But it might mean that we perform something with more contemporary influences and sounds, which doesn't mean a-tonal, tone row inspired crap (not that it's all crap). Rather, commission composers that are writing in traditional forms but use hip hop sonorities. Try programmatic music that sounds more like being on a mission in Call of Duty than it does the city sounds of Chicago. Meet the people where they are.

The Detroit Symphony Orchestra has done recent work with some famous DJs, video game music, and Kid Rock. And while they are not the prime financial planning example, they appear to be an orchestra for the people. After all, what is music without an audience?

Is our music so great and our egos so mammoth that we will resign to kill ourselves slowly rather than"taint" our empty sanctuaries sounding of Bach, Hindemith, and John Cage?