Mostly musicology will be a new set of posts of music history stories that I find amusing. The first entry is John Abell (1653-?). Scottish composer, countertenor and lutenist. The Groves dictionary has this wonderful story.
"Upon his arrival at Warsaw, the king having notice of it, sent for him to his court. Abell made some slight excuse to evade going, but upon being told that he had everything to fear from the king's resentment, he made an apology, and received a command to attend the king next day. Upon his arrival at the palace, he was seated in a chair in the middle of a spacious hall, and immediately drawn up to a great height; presently the king with his attendants appeared in a gallery opposite to him, and at the same instant a number of wild bears were turned in; the king bade him then choose whether he would sing or be let down among the bears; Abell chose the former, and declared afterwards that he never sang so well in his life"
Sing for your supper. Sing or be supper.
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Monday, April 30, 2012
Saturday, April 28, 2012
Little Garden Bestiary
The fabulous Betsy Bobenhouse was able to get a little funding together for a commission to write a piece for her student recorder ensemble. Having never written for recorder ensemble before, I quickly sent of messages to composer friends asking for advice. It turns out that I'm not friends with any composers who have written for recorder ensemble. Once I finally grasped the idea that recorder players actually memorize two different sets of fingerings, I was off. As I let my mind wander about, I found that I wanted to write some little animal pieces after the manner of a medieval bestiary.
I. Les oiseaux (birds)
For this one, I was just thinking of a bird in a garden
II. I grilli (crickets)
Here I was thinking of the fun rhythms that crickets make when they don't line up perfectly. I was also thinking of a recording of crickets that was slowed down that I heard once. It sounded like the music of the spheres, so I had the tenor and bass play pitches from the harmonic series.
III. Die Würmer (worms)
This one exploits the ability of recorder players to partially cover the holes and slide around. It's creepy.
IV. Los escarabajos (beatles)
This one has a funny story. I was premiering a short song cycle that I had written with my soprano friend Eugenia at the Regional Southeastern College Music Society some years ago. After hearing some dense atonal music, my friend talked about how it made her feel. She said it was music filled with ugliness and hatred. Right before we went on, there was a minimalist piece that was tonal and energetic. I asked her how she felt about it. She said it was evil too. "Why?!" I asked - somewhat shocked. "Because," she replied, "it sounds like insects crawling around in your brain." Ever since, I have associated minimalism with small creeping animals.
V. Les papillons (butterflies)
Of course, butterflies are a necessary part of any Garden Bestiary.
I. Les oiseaux (birds)
For this one, I was just thinking of a bird in a garden
II. I grilli (crickets)
Here I was thinking of the fun rhythms that crickets make when they don't line up perfectly. I was also thinking of a recording of crickets that was slowed down that I heard once. It sounded like the music of the spheres, so I had the tenor and bass play pitches from the harmonic series.
III. Die Würmer (worms)
This one exploits the ability of recorder players to partially cover the holes and slide around. It's creepy.
IV. Los escarabajos (beatles)
This one has a funny story. I was premiering a short song cycle that I had written with my soprano friend Eugenia at the Regional Southeastern College Music Society some years ago. After hearing some dense atonal music, my friend talked about how it made her feel. She said it was music filled with ugliness and hatred. Right before we went on, there was a minimalist piece that was tonal and energetic. I asked her how she felt about it. She said it was evil too. "Why?!" I asked - somewhat shocked. "Because," she replied, "it sounds like insects crawling around in your brain." Ever since, I have associated minimalism with small creeping animals.
V. Les papillons (butterflies)
Of course, butterflies are a necessary part of any Garden Bestiary.
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
The state of things for composers (part 2)
As soon as I made yesterdays post, I received some comments via Twitter and Facebook about self-publishing. An interesting blog post from Clay Shirky also popped up on my Twitter feed at the same time.
I think Clay gets it right when he says, “Publishing is not evolving. Publishing is going away. Because the word “publishing” means a cadre of professionals who are taking on the incredible difficulty and complexity and expense of making something public. That’s not a job anymore. That’s a button. There’s a button that says “publish,” and when you press it, it’s done.”
In tackling the 5000/yr model that I mentioned yesterday, Dr. Shirky correctly identifies the issue. “Now publishers are in the business not of overcoming scarcity but of manufacturing demand. And that means that almost all innovation in creation, consumption, distribution and use of text is coming from outside the traditional publishing industry.”
So, we are all being encouraged to self-publish. I recall about 10 years ago having an email exchange with Stephen Paulus. He said, “Kurt, you need to just self-publish. The distribution isn’t as wide, but you make so much more per copy.” I thought, well, yes, but you’re Stephen Paulus. So, I went the more traditional route, until I began to get frustrated with the industry.
I’ll address some of the practical problems of self-publishing soon, but for now, let me address what I see to be the most pernicious aspect of it. Haig Mardision, who thinks and writes about many of these same issues for the American Organist (a fine composer in his own right) wrote to me and ended saying, “Tricky thing is to reclaim the juried standard.”
Haig nails the core issue. The internet is a bathroom wall. Anyone can write something on it, and oftentimes it is pornographic and lewd and not worth the time you spent investigating it. There is no question that the industry is changing, and publishers (at least as we know them now) may not survive the sea-change.
In the interim, we are in a phase where being a “published composer” still carries weight in many circles. I’m not sure that it always should - considering what some of the companies are willing to print. At the same time, I’m a little reluctant to go to the “give your stuff away for free” model that some are pushing right now. The composers that I know that are using that model have never really made much money from writing.
The most successful and least successful all say to self-publish. That leaves those of us who might be called moderately successful in a strange spot. I’ll talk more about some of the practical aspects of that in the next post. Ironically, I had a conversation about that with one of our countries more successful composers this week too.
I think Clay gets it right when he says, “Publishing is not evolving. Publishing is going away. Because the word “publishing” means a cadre of professionals who are taking on the incredible difficulty and complexity and expense of making something public. That’s not a job anymore. That’s a button. There’s a button that says “publish,” and when you press it, it’s done.”
In tackling the 5000/yr model that I mentioned yesterday, Dr. Shirky correctly identifies the issue. “Now publishers are in the business not of overcoming scarcity but of manufacturing demand. And that means that almost all innovation in creation, consumption, distribution and use of text is coming from outside the traditional publishing industry.”
So, we are all being encouraged to self-publish. I recall about 10 years ago having an email exchange with Stephen Paulus. He said, “Kurt, you need to just self-publish. The distribution isn’t as wide, but you make so much more per copy.” I thought, well, yes, but you’re Stephen Paulus. So, I went the more traditional route, until I began to get frustrated with the industry.
I’ll address some of the practical problems of self-publishing soon, but for now, let me address what I see to be the most pernicious aspect of it. Haig Mardision, who thinks and writes about many of these same issues for the American Organist (a fine composer in his own right) wrote to me and ended saying, “Tricky thing is to reclaim the juried standard.”
Haig nails the core issue. The internet is a bathroom wall. Anyone can write something on it, and oftentimes it is pornographic and lewd and not worth the time you spent investigating it. There is no question that the industry is changing, and publishers (at least as we know them now) may not survive the sea-change.
In the interim, we are in a phase where being a “published composer” still carries weight in many circles. I’m not sure that it always should - considering what some of the companies are willing to print. At the same time, I’m a little reluctant to go to the “give your stuff away for free” model that some are pushing right now. The composers that I know that are using that model have never really made much money from writing.
The most successful and least successful all say to self-publish. That leaves those of us who might be called moderately successful in a strange spot. I’ll talk more about some of the practical aspects of that in the next post. Ironically, I had a conversation about that with one of our countries more successful composers this week too.
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
The state of things for composers (part 1)
I have a few thoughts about the state of things for composers that I will post over the next few days. Stay tuned for more exciting and depressing thoughts.
I have a trusted friend who is a wonderful musical mind and a genuine and caring person. He happens to be an excellent editor with many connections. So, when I write something that I think might be publishable, he is always the first to see it.
I sent a few files off to him this week. One of the responses that he gave was that a certain piece was fabulous but that X publishing house would never look at it because “the piano part looked harder than it actually was.” The sad thing is, I knew immediately that he was as correct and insightful as ever.
I think it was sometime last year that a score had to be changed from D flat to D in order to be published. The reason, I was told, was that all the accidentals would scare people away and it wouldn’t sell that well. So, I changed it to D – even though it wasn’t the right key for the piece. Turns out, it didn’t sell all that well anyway.
To be fair to the publishing industry, they are running a business and financial considerations do have to come into the picture. Everyone gets a cut. The distributor takes a huge cut to pay for promotions and lawyers. The local music store takes a big cut. The publisher takes a cut. Some scraps are left for the composer, editor, and the copyist. To give you an idea of the creators cut, most composers are now left with around 8% of the retail or 16% of the wholesale price. That means you have to sell a mad amount in order to make any money.
The entire industry is changing right now, but no one is sure exactly where it is going. A few years ago, I was chatting with the business manager of a publishing firm. He explained the model very clearly to me. “Our model is based completely around publishing pieces that will sell 5000 copies in their first year. We don’t even care that much about what happens after that because it’s all a residual bonus. The model is 5000 in the first year.”
The big question is whether or not this sort of model is viable economically. It’s certainly not a model that fosters creativity and innovation, but as I said before, the publishing houses are businesses and the artistic end is usually not their top priority. They have to eat too.
I have a trusted friend who is a wonderful musical mind and a genuine and caring person. He happens to be an excellent editor with many connections. So, when I write something that I think might be publishable, he is always the first to see it.
I sent a few files off to him this week. One of the responses that he gave was that a certain piece was fabulous but that X publishing house would never look at it because “the piano part looked harder than it actually was.” The sad thing is, I knew immediately that he was as correct and insightful as ever.
I think it was sometime last year that a score had to be changed from D flat to D in order to be published. The reason, I was told, was that all the accidentals would scare people away and it wouldn’t sell that well. So, I changed it to D – even though it wasn’t the right key for the piece. Turns out, it didn’t sell all that well anyway.
To be fair to the publishing industry, they are running a business and financial considerations do have to come into the picture. Everyone gets a cut. The distributor takes a huge cut to pay for promotions and lawyers. The local music store takes a big cut. The publisher takes a cut. Some scraps are left for the composer, editor, and the copyist. To give you an idea of the creators cut, most composers are now left with around 8% of the retail or 16% of the wholesale price. That means you have to sell a mad amount in order to make any money.
The entire industry is changing right now, but no one is sure exactly where it is going. A few years ago, I was chatting with the business manager of a publishing firm. He explained the model very clearly to me. “Our model is based completely around publishing pieces that will sell 5000 copies in their first year. We don’t even care that much about what happens after that because it’s all a residual bonus. The model is 5000 in the first year.”
The big question is whether or not this sort of model is viable economically. It’s certainly not a model that fosters creativity and innovation, but as I said before, the publishing houses are businesses and the artistic end is usually not their top priority. They have to eat too.
Sunday, April 08, 2012
A quick follow up on the previous Doppler post
Dr. Weiss wrote back and asked if it would be possible to produce any major (or minor) chord of higher or lower frequency using the Doppler shift.
(You can read the previous post here.)
The problem with this is that once we hit 340 m/s, we are at the sound barrier. As I understand it, once we hit the sound barrier the waves are compressed against each other so that we no longer hear them as a specific pitch, but as a sonic boom. So, how far can we slide?
Using our trust formula, if I take an A 440Hz and travel at 340 m/s away from it:
440Hz*340m/s ÷ (340m/s + 340 m/s) = x
149600 ÷ 680 = 220 Hz
Miraculously convenient, it appears that at the precise point at which you would perceive a pitch exactly one octave below where it is played, you would create a sonic boom instead and probably blow out someone's ear drums. So, don't try it at home.
(You can read the previous post here.)
The problem with this is that once we hit 340 m/s, we are at the sound barrier. As I understand it, once we hit the sound barrier the waves are compressed against each other so that we no longer hear them as a specific pitch, but as a sonic boom. So, how far can we slide?
Using our trust formula, if I take an A 440Hz and travel at 340 m/s away from it:
440Hz*340m/s ÷ (340m/s + 340 m/s) = x
149600 ÷ 680 = 220 Hz
Miraculously convenient, it appears that at the precise point at which you would perceive a pitch exactly one octave below where it is played, you would create a sonic boom instead and probably blow out someone's ear drums. So, don't try it at home.
Saturday, April 07, 2012
Tying alto sax players to trains to explain the Doppler shift
A physician friend phoned me the other day with an interesting problem. He was discussing the Doppler shift with some physics friends. They wondered if it was possible to hear a chord shift from major to minor due to the Doppler shift.
If you don’t know anything about music theory, a major chord and a minor chord are similar in structure. They contain 2 notes in common. In music, we call these notes the root and the 5th. So, if we start on a C, the 5th note above that in our major and minor scales is a G. The difference happens in the third note above the root C. If it is a major chord, it has an E. If it is a minor chord, it has an E flat.
Clearly we could have a situation where I had two trusty French Horn players in stationary positions on my left and right. They could play the C and the G. I could then tie an alto saxophone player to a train car and compel him to play an E as the train sped away. Now, in my imaginary scenario, this alto sax player can play a concert E in tune (which is far fetched, I know, but this is science so bare with me).
To calculate the Doppler shift as sounds move away, the formula is:
Frequency Observed = Frequency*Velocity of Sound/(Velocity of Sound + Velocity of Object moving away)
In this scenario, let’s imagine our horn players are playing Middle C and the G above it. I need my saxophone player to play and E, but I want to hear an Eb. So that we don’t get too fussy, I’m going to use equal temperament frequencies and assume straight lines and not wind resistance so that the cosine of theta doesn’t get involved in the calculations. So:
My Observed Frequency will be 311.127 (Eb)
My Actual Frequency will be 329.628 (E)
The Velocity of sound is roughly 340m/s
311.127Hz = 329.628Hz*340m/s ÷ (340m/s + x)
311.127 = 112073.579 ÷ (340 + x)
105783.180 + 311.127x = 112073.579
311.127x=6290.399
x = 20.21 m/s (or roughly 45 mph)
So, when the train is moving away at 45 mph, I will hear an E flat even though he is playing an E.
Very neat, but it was not actually the question that my friend asked. He was wondering if there was a scenario where all of them were on the train and moving at the same time. In other words, do frequencies fall uniformly during the Doppler shift. My initial reaction was that you couldn’t do it. I called my friend the research scientist. He agreed that it wouldn’t work. Using our same formula, you can see why. If I take the lowest C on the piano (32.7 Hz) and the highest E flat (2489 Hz) and have them played by a tuba and piccolo player (which I have tied to the alto sax player) and send the train of at 64.29 m/s (a little over 143 mph (we are obviously in Japan or Europe at this point and not on Amtrak)) an interesting thing happens. Using the formula above, the C at 32.7Hz will be observed at 27.5Hz which is the A a minor third below. The piccolo player playing the E flat at 2489Hz will be observed at 2093Hz, the C a minor third below. So, If a major chord slides with the Doppler shift, the frequencies will slide uniformly. It will stay major.
I can conceive of one situation where something like my friend suggested could actually happen. If I were at a football game and two French Horn players were marching directly toward me playing a C and a G while the alto sax player was marching directly away from me playing an F, there would come a point in the Doppler shift where I would hear the minor chord C# E G#. Theoretically, I would hear this as a minor chord even though they were playing a suspended chord. Of course for this scenario to happen, they would have to be marching at about 45 mph.
The idea of two French Horn players marching toward me at 45 mph is the stuff of my worst nightmares, and I’d rather not even imagine such a thing happening.
If you don’t know anything about music theory, a major chord and a minor chord are similar in structure. They contain 2 notes in common. In music, we call these notes the root and the 5th. So, if we start on a C, the 5th note above that in our major and minor scales is a G. The difference happens in the third note above the root C. If it is a major chord, it has an E. If it is a minor chord, it has an E flat.
Clearly we could have a situation where I had two trusty French Horn players in stationary positions on my left and right. They could play the C and the G. I could then tie an alto saxophone player to a train car and compel him to play an E as the train sped away. Now, in my imaginary scenario, this alto sax player can play a concert E in tune (which is far fetched, I know, but this is science so bare with me).
To calculate the Doppler shift as sounds move away, the formula is:
Frequency Observed = Frequency*Velocity of Sound/(Velocity of Sound + Velocity of Object moving away)
In this scenario, let’s imagine our horn players are playing Middle C and the G above it. I need my saxophone player to play and E, but I want to hear an Eb. So that we don’t get too fussy, I’m going to use equal temperament frequencies and assume straight lines and not wind resistance so that the cosine of theta doesn’t get involved in the calculations. So:
My Observed Frequency will be 311.127 (Eb)
My Actual Frequency will be 329.628 (E)
The Velocity of sound is roughly 340m/s
311.127Hz = 329.628Hz*340m/s ÷ (340m/s + x)
311.127 = 112073.579 ÷ (340 + x)
105783.180 + 311.127x = 112073.579
311.127x=6290.399
x = 20.21 m/s (or roughly 45 mph)
So, when the train is moving away at 45 mph, I will hear an E flat even though he is playing an E.
Very neat, but it was not actually the question that my friend asked. He was wondering if there was a scenario where all of them were on the train and moving at the same time. In other words, do frequencies fall uniformly during the Doppler shift. My initial reaction was that you couldn’t do it. I called my friend the research scientist. He agreed that it wouldn’t work. Using our same formula, you can see why. If I take the lowest C on the piano (32.7 Hz) and the highest E flat (2489 Hz) and have them played by a tuba and piccolo player (which I have tied to the alto sax player) and send the train of at 64.29 m/s (a little over 143 mph (we are obviously in Japan or Europe at this point and not on Amtrak)) an interesting thing happens. Using the formula above, the C at 32.7Hz will be observed at 27.5Hz which is the A a minor third below. The piccolo player playing the E flat at 2489Hz will be observed at 2093Hz, the C a minor third below. So, If a major chord slides with the Doppler shift, the frequencies will slide uniformly. It will stay major.
I can conceive of one situation where something like my friend suggested could actually happen. If I were at a football game and two French Horn players were marching directly toward me playing a C and a G while the alto sax player was marching directly away from me playing an F, there would come a point in the Doppler shift where I would hear the minor chord C# E G#. Theoretically, I would hear this as a minor chord even though they were playing a suspended chord. Of course for this scenario to happen, they would have to be marching at about 45 mph.
The idea of two French Horn players marching toward me at 45 mph is the stuff of my worst nightmares, and I’d rather not even imagine such a thing happening.
Friday, April 06, 2012
Good Friday
Here's a little 12 tone arrangement of the Passion Chorale that I scratched out in a few minutes the other day for our SPACE service. For all of you that don't believe that I wrote serial music for 10 years, here's the proof. Of course, this had to be simple. We don't practice. This was the first reading. Still, it's kind of nice in that 12 tone sort of way.
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