Sound Scenes

Nearly Done

2009-07-01T14:08:00.004-04:00

Well, I have nearly finished the work on my Master's thesis. It's been a long long road, and I wanted to make a post about a few final findings. I've included a chapter outline below.

All in all, my research on three new music groups and the culture in which they perform has been pretty fascinating. In particular, I have been surprised at the extent to which I got in my own way, an experience predicted in James Spradley's writings on ethnographic method. Most of all, I struggled with understanding the why of new music. Why perform this music? Why go into debt with little hope of earning a sizable income? Why settle for a life of poverty in exchange for the opportunity to make music?

I don't have complete answers to those questions, but I have some ideas. I remember Courteny Orlando telling me that Alarm Will Sound comprised some of her most favorite experiences. I remember Dave Farell describing his experiences with performers with fondness, and Jeremy Sment's story of working with eighth blackbird. I also remeber the rehearsals of the groups. Rehearsals strike me as particularly rich social events. At times, they resembled parties and at times the resembled surgeries. I'll have to spend more time with this topic in my future fieldwork.

I'll plan to begin circulating copies of the thesis to the ensembles themselves. It'll be interesting to see what people think.

Chapter outline (including subsections of interest):

Chapter 1 An Ethnography of New Music

Chapter 2 A Brief History of New Music Practice
Serialism and the Institutionalization of Art Music
Experimentalism, Indeterminacy, and Other Camps
Minimalism, Postmodernism, and Accepting Popular Music

Chapter 3 (Dis)Ordered Bodies: Performance, Difference, and Time
Breaking the Mold: the Postmodern Performances of Alarm Will Sound and
eighth blackbird
Yarn/Wire in the Concert Hall

Chapter 4 It’s not about the money: Patronage and Socioeconomic Structure
Symbolic Capital
“Real” Capital

Chapter 5 Reflections and Conclusions

Yeah, still writing the thesis.

2009-05-18T14:29:00.001-04:00

In the meantime, I thought I'd post a few tidbits. First of all, I'm moving to Canada to go to school. Second of all, I'm currently living in Bloomington with Abby. Finally, did a presentation on New Music and Technoculture for a class I took this spring. I've attached the (slightly shaky) proposal below. More to come on all of this in later days.

Proposal for "Getting to the Music: Conduits of Technology & Metaphor in New Art Music"

Musicians in American avant-garde ensembles incorporate a range of technologies in their performances. High-tech devices such as laptops and sound systems appear alongside ostensibly low-tech devices like sheet music and acoustic instruments. In spite of this regular merger of high and low, members of new music ensembles clearly distinguish between their own low-tech concerts and multimedia extravaganzas of rock bands like Radiohead.

New music practitioners commonly view the incorporation of technology with suspicion, implying that "technology is somehow false or falsifying” (Frith, 1986). By celebrating acoustic instruments’ alleged low-tech status as a source of performative pride and prestige, they criticize the overuse or misuse of technology as a route to easy, less meaningful displays of virtuosity. In order to achieve new music’s ideals, musicians must confine technology to a discreet and subliminal role that foregrounds the authority of human performers. Their language surrounding technology and performance reflects and reinforces such ideals.

My argument applies the theories of Michael Reddy and George Lakoff to avant-garde musicians’ incorporation of technology. Focusing on language and performance, I draw on my own ethnographic research with two new music ensembles, Alarm Will Sound and eighth blackbird to reveal their articulations and expressions as instruments of place and authenticity. My approach demonstrates how these musicians perceive and produce “live” music and identify “music” as a site of truth or icon of good faith.

Sweet Lullabies

2009-04-03T13:22:00.003-04:00

Recently, I've been reading a great deal about the appropriation of non-western music by European and American musicians. I feel this is a major issue, though I haven't engaged it much in my own research. Quite frankly, new music has a long history of exoticizing the music of non-western cultures. When I bring this up in discussions in the field, people often defend the appropriators, especially by pointing out that new music folks aren't making a lot of money doing this. I think that's a poor response and a dodge. This is a problem and we need to talk about it.

I read a blog post today by Ethan Zuckerman, a researcher at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society. He has a great blog and he posted way back in July about an appropriation story that's recieved much attention in ethnomusicology literature. I invite you to check it out.

ETS can suck it

2009-02-28T17:10:00.006-05:00

I recently received an email from Educational Testing Services:

Dear GRE Test Taker,

ETS would like to invite you to participate in a survey to tell us about your experiences taking the GRE. The survey will take about 20 minutes to complete and can be accessed by clicking on the link below.
http://surveys1013.websurveyor.net/l.dll/JGsA5C6F9F9lxpD9U3012417J.htm
Your feedback is very important, as the results of this survey will help us develop and offer better products and services to you, and other test-takers in the future.

Thank you in advance for your participation!
Please note: all of your answers are completely anonymous and confidential.

Sincerely,
ETS Marketing Research
marketresearch@ets.org

This may not seem ridiculous to you, so allow me to explain why this email sucks. Educational Testing Services has already charged a small fortune to mail my test scores to the grad schools I've applied to.
Registration: $110
Fee to mail scores to one grad school: $20
Number of schools: 16
Total: $430

ETS wants me to help them improve their testing services, so that they can get better at testing people. Basically, ETS is inviting me to be a part of the process of screwing myself. I suppose my feedback could help, but I have serious misgivings about this. I mean, why do I even take this test? It strikes me as a way to create a financial barrier to applying to school, inhibiting working class people from creating many options for themselves.

Presidential Arts

2009-02-26T13:14:00.003-05:00

Alex Ross, music critic for the New Yorker, has posted a link to an article about Pres. Obama's attendance at a recent Kennedy Center performance. Ross describes the article as "a promising piece," implying that Obama's action represents a positive act. The article reports similar responses in other art scene players:

If outings to arts venues become a habit with the first family, “it would be a huge boon to the arts community in Washington and for the United States and the world,” says David Andrew Snider, president of the League of Washington Theatres. “There’s a widespread feeling that he ‘gets it.’ He gets the importance of the arts” (Boehm, M. and Jones, C. 2009).

Two things manifest here. First, a "rhetoric of survival" (McClary, S. 1989) runs throughout the responses quoted in the article. Above, Snider connects Obama's faithful participation (expressed with the colloquialism "he gets it") with the potential for increasing the public profile and attendance in art events. Snider suggests that some don't "get" the importance of the arts and that that is bad.

Second, patronage and its devices shape the economy of prestige practiced by artistic cultures. Snider expresses this with the word "boon." President Obama's presence acts as an endorsment, blessing "the arts community" with enormous symbolic capital.

IU conference

2009-02-17T13:36:00.006-05:00

This Saturday, I'll be presenting on my research at the 2009 Special Symposium on Performance and Analysis at Indiana University (in Ford-Crawford Hall shown here). The paper I've written draws on my thesis research on eighth blackbird, Yarn/Wire, and Alarm Will Sound. I apply Pierre Bourdieu's theories to demonstrate a new music network of production, and demonstrate aspects of new music's sociocultural context. I've included the abstract for the conference below.

OK, I have a large range of emotions about this. First of all, I'm super excited. It's nice to present after a year and a half of research, kind of like going to the bathroom after holding it too long. Several good friends who study at IU, including my g/f Abby, plan to come to my paper. One of my academic heroes Susan McClary will also attend as a keynote. I've posted about McClary, or as I like to refer to her in my head "SuMac," before. Her work has been a major influence to me, and I'm thrilled to meet her. Added Bonus: I get to pick her up at the airport and hang with her for the hour-long car ride between Indy and Bloomington. (!)

But I am anxious about presenting a paper on sociology and sociomusical practices to a music theory crowd. To my knowledge, Bourdieu's theories don't make for standard reading in music theory (or in musicology, for that matter), and the concepts get a bit complicated. Also, in the paper I argue that contemporary abstract music has a social and cultural context; some people may take issue with this (it's complicated). Suffice to say that my position, in a way, conflicts with that of some of my informants.

Whatever happens, I'm gonna give it my best. I presented the paper here yesterday to some faculty and students, and the edits and suggestions they gave will help me take this paper up to 11.

Chapter 2 outline, baby!

2009-02-03T13:28:00.005-05:00

I am excited to announce the outline to chapter two of my thesis. Below I have posted the handwritten draft that Dr. Golden, my advisor, and I cooked up yesterday. As snow blanketed Knoxville, we hashed out the relevant composers and styles for my study. It's not a perfect or even complete history, just a grounding with which to explain some of the significance of the music performed by Alarm Will Sound, eighth blackbird, and Yarn/Wire.
A few things require explanation: "PoMo" is my short hand for postmodern; I'm trying to both separate a musical modernism from a postmodernism and to demonstrate the interconnectedness of these two positions. Also, I'm really pumped to incorporate a folder I got from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester during a recent visit. I was fortunate enough to get an interview there, and I found a lot of flyers and literature that seemed super relevant for my study. Also, the fact that I was able to do fieldwork while interviewing for the Ph.D. program further illustrated a connection between institutions and new music that I make in my thesis.

Who's answers are these, anyway?

2009-01-23T16:41:00.003-05:00

Reviewing recordings of myself is…tough. Luckily, I get to practice doing this a lot as part of my thesis. In the course of conducting fieldwork , I’ve made thirteen or so recordings of interviews, mostly with members of the three ensembles in my study, but also with composers at Indiana University. Interviews last anywhere from thirty minutes to two hours.

(this is a picture of my assorted recording equipment from my May NYC trip to Bang on a Can. It all fit in my backpack, along with unshown mics and xlr cables)

One aspect that disturbs me concerns the extent to which I mediate the responses of interlocutors (fancy word for people you speak with). Obviously, I’m going to re-shape their comments in the process of writing my thesis. I’ll edit down “ums,” long pauses, and occasionally even insert words in an attempt to clarify what I’m claiming other people said. I understood this as a transcription problem, but I didn’t realize that mediation starts from the moment people agree to answer questions.

Take for example my interview with Nic. Nic is a member of a prestigious ensemble. Like the other members of the group, he was extremely kind and easy going. Unfortunately, I was nervous to speak with him, and in the interview I sound anxious, somewhat controlling, and scattered. I frequently interrupted Nic as he attempted to explain something, and I rarely laughed at his jokes because of my anxiety. When I listen to the recording I hear good answers regularly inhibited by antsy questions. I also hear my own inability to converse at any comfortable level. It’s basically a sort of politely intense interrogation.

Not all of my interviews are so wonky. Some contain long uninterrupted replies, and are genuinely enjoyable to hear. I engage in conversation when appropriate, and encourage the person to speak freely and openly. In general, most recordings have elements of both the “good” and the “bad.” All in all, I would say that the more interviews I transcribe, the better I am able to shape sessions towards what I consider to be positive ends.

Whatever my feelings about the interview content, my role in shaping and mediating responses has become increasingly clear. I would argue that for my ethnography (and probably for others, too) the interrogator plays a highly influential role in crafting the responses of informants. Obviously I cannot control their actions, but I do control their representation.

Ugh, Finally

2009-01-16T11:51:00.003-05:00

It’s been a busy two months. I took my comprehensive exams, an intense, fascinating and terrifying three part experience that tests your knowledge on any course you have taken in grad school, and on matters related to your research.

Step 1: Take one week to answer the three questions of my thesis committee.

Step 2: Four to five days after submitting my answers, I defend and expand upon them in an oral exam, a fun one on three session usually lasting two hours. I was riding an emotional roller coaster during the oral, sometimes feeling totally confident and at others feeling pretty dumb.

Step 3: Revise my answers as per the comments made during the oral exam. Expand upon ideas, clarify language, and reinforce connections.

The calmer I felt, the better my answers, in both the written and oral portions of the test. Fear, anxiety, ego, and vanity lurked dangerously in my mind as I tried to answer questions.

I also managed to finish submitting my applications to Ph.D. programs. Abby, my g/f, and I have applied to sixteen school in the US and Canada. Having that out of the way is certainly a load off my shoulders. We've heard a few good things, though I'm withholding details until we start making decisions.

But another reason I haven’t been blogging is the need for a break or what I like to call “brain fatigue.” I guess in the process of essentially writing my ass off, the idea of posting didn’t taste good. Seems reasonable, to quote my advisor, Rachel. I also decided to leave the community orchestra I’ve had the pleasure of conducting for the past three years. It was time for a change and they needed someone who could be more available than me.

One final note for anybody who’s in my thesis, I haven’t forgotten about mailing IRB forms. I’ll be getting those out over the weekend.

Again, again

2008-11-18T23:48:00.002-05:00

That's right, revised again.

The complex and ostensibly contradictory beliefs within new music discourse, in combination with their polyvocal manifestations, encourage an interdisciplinary approach. In order to engage this discourse both critically and sympathetically, I combine methods from musicology, ethnomusicology, sociology, history, and cultural theory with my ethnographic work. My mixture of these approaches allows for a reading that addresses both the behavior of new music’s participants and my informants’ diverse perspectives. I embrace my own experience and perspective in order to show new music as intricately interwoven collections of sounds, behaviors, exchanges, and ideologies.
My approach engages too analytical frames with a “critical orientation” to examine broader contextual implications. (Prior, 2008, p. 303). In part, I treat theory as toolkit, a concept outlined by Michel Foucault:

The notion of theory as a toolkit means (i) The theory to be constructed is not a system but an instrument, a logic of the specificity of power relations and the struggles around them; (ii) That this investigation can only be carried out step by step on the basis of reflection (which will necessarily be historical in some of its aspects) on given situations (1980, p. 145).

Foucault’s call for historically oriented reflection encourages the adaptation, as necessary, of the theoretical models we employ. In other words, theory is not the end, but the means by which we demonstrate cultural significance.
My use of reading reflects the influence of anthropologist James Clifford (1986), who describes ethnography as a “partial truth” comprising both fact and fiction. I would add that all musical scholarship consists of partial truths constructed from other partial truths. In traditional musical scholarship, however, the dogmatic objectivism of music theory often promotes the goal of impartial analytic completeness and can hide the inherent subjectivity of the analysis and the music it treats.
Scholars thus often engage “music” as an autonomous object, free from external reference. Theorist Michael Kowalski, for instance, states in Perspectives of New Music: “Until willfully structured sounds are played by someone and enjoyed—as a structure—by someone else, there is no music” (1982, p. 6). Ethnomusicologist Henry Kingsbury argues that architectural terms commonly used to portray music, “such as ‘structure,’ ‘form,’ ‘level,’ and ‘bridge’” privilege fixity, “greatness,” and monument as crucial elements of musical value. (1991, p. 199). In Kingsbury’s examples and Kowalski’s statement, the veneer of written impartiality in fact betrays biases toward structuralism.
However, some of the ideas associated with structuralism can be reinterpreted and reapplied in useful ways. Criticizing approaches that restrict “musical structure” to form, musicologist Susan McClary advocates cultural consciousness and somatically awareness. She writes:

The power of music—both for dominant cultures and for those who would promote alternatives—resides in its ability to shape the ways we experience our bodies, emotions, subjectivities, desires, and social relations. And to study such effects demands that we recognize the ideological basis of music’s operations—its cultural constructedness (McClary, 2000, pp. 6-7).

Structures, both musical and cultural, prove fluid, encode power relationships, and speak to personal subjectivities.
New music’s cultural constructedness changes and reacts according to the subjective perspectives of those who produce and consume it. Like ethnography, the sociomusical domain consists of both facts and fictions, continually deconstructed and reconfigured. Something about three interdependent binaries that occur within and between classical and new music culture: traditional/ avant-garde, popular/art, modern/postmodern.

a revision

2008-11-17T21:50:00.003-05:00

Did I mention the constant revisions? That's right, after spending hours and hours figuring what you want to say, you get to rework it all a few more times. Fortunately that part is way easier that the first part.

The complex and ostensibly contradictory beliefs within new music discourse, in combination with their polyvocal manifestations, encourage an interdisciplinary approach. In order to engage this discourse both critically and sympathetically, I combine methods from musicology, ethnomusicology, sociology, history, and cultural theory with my ethnographic work. My mixture of these approaches allows for a reading that addresses both the behavior of new music’s participants and my informants’ diverse perspectives.

In part, I treat theory as toolkit, a concept outlined by Michel Foucault:

The notion of theory as a toolkit means (i) The theory to be constructed is not a system but an instrument, a logic of the specificity of power relations and the struggles around them; (ii) That this investigation can only be carried out step by step on the basis of reflection (which will necessarily be historical in some of its aspects) on given situations (1980, p. 145).

In other words, theory is not the ends, but the means with which we determine meaning. Foucault’s call for historically oriented reflection encourages the adaptation, when necessary, of the theoretical models we employ. Along these lines, I engage my analytical models with a “critical orientation” (Prior, 2008, p. 303).

My use of reading reflects the influence of anthropologist James Clifford (1986), who describes ethnography as a “partial truth” comprised of fact and fiction. I would add that all musical scholarship consists of partial truths constructed from other partial truths. In traditional musical scholarship, however, the dogmatic objectivism of music theory often promotes the goal of impartial analytic completeness and can hide the inherent subjectivity of the analysis and the music it treat. Scholars thus often engage “music” as an autonomous object, free from external reference. Theorist Michael Kowalski, for instance, stated in Perspectives of New Music: “Until willfully structured sounds are played by someone and enjoyed—as a structure—by someone else, there is no music” (1982, p. 6). Ethnomusicologist Henry Kingsbury has examined the language of musical scholarship, and argues that the terms used to portray music, “such as ‘structure,’ ‘form,’ ‘level,’ and ‘bridge’” express social stability (1991, p. 199). In the cases of Kingsbury’s examples and Kowalski’s statement, written impartiality betray a particular partialness.

However, some of the ideas associated with structuralism can be reinterpreted and reapplied in useful ways. Musicologist Susan McClary, for example, has criticized approaches that limit “musical structure” to denote the form of specific musical works. Rather, she advocates culturally conscious approach in our analyses, writing:

The power of music—both for dominant cultures and for those who would promote alternatives—resides in its ability to shape the ways we experience our bodies, emotions, subjectivities, desires, and social relations. And to study such effects demands that we recognize the ideological basis of music’s operations—its cultural constructedness (McClary, 2000, pp. 6-7).

For McClary and Kingsbury, the ways we describe and engage music constitutes our own subjective—and thus partial—positions.

New music’s cultural constructedness changes and reacts according to the subjective perspectives of those who produce and consume it. Like ethnography, it consists of both fact and fiction constructed and re/deconstructed over and over again. I embrace my own experience and perspective in order to show new music as intricately interwoven collections of sounds, behaviors, exchanges, and ideologies.

More from the thesis

2008-11-17T00:06:00.003-05:00

The two paragraphs below represent pretty much all I've done since Saturday morning. This is the beginning of my methodology section in my thesis proposal. I've been pushing pretty hard to wrap it up, but it sometimes takes me a while to figure out what I'm doing. (hopefully this will answer your question, Daniel).

The complex and ostensibly contradictory beliefs within new music discourse, in combination with their polyvocal manifestations, encourage an interdisciplinary approach. In order to engage this discourse both critically and sympathetically, I combine methods from musicology, ethnomusicology, sociology, history, and cultural theory with my ethnographic work. My mixture of these approaches allows for a reading that addresses both the behavior of new music’s participants and my informants’ diverse perspectives. I treat theory as toolkit, a concept outlined by Michel Foucault:

“The notion of theory as a toolkit means (i) The theory to be constructed is not a system but an instrument, a logic of the specificity of power relations and the struggles around them; (ii) That this investigation can only be carried out step by step on the basis of reflection (which will necessarily be historical in some of its aspects) on given situations” (1980, p. 145).

Along these lines, I engage my analytical models with a “critical orientation” (Prior, 2008, p. 303).

My use of “reading” reflects the influence of anthropologist James Clifford (1986), who describes ethnography as a “partial truth” comprised of fact and fiction. Indeed, I would add that all musical scholarship consists of partial truths constructed from other partial truths. In traditional musical scholarship, however, the dogmatic objectivism of music theory often promotes impartial analytic completeness and can hide the inherent subjectivity of such work. Theorist Michael Kowalski, for instance, published the following statement in Perspectives of New Music: “Until willfully structured sounds are played by someone and enjoyed—as a structure—by someone else, there is no music” (1982, p. 6). Ethnomusicologist Henry Kingsbury has examined the language of musical scholarship, and argues that the terms used to portray music, “such as ‘structure,’ ‘form,’ ‘level,’ and ‘bridge’” express social stability (1991, p. 199). In the case of Kingsbury’s examples and in Kowalski’s statement, authors engage “music” as an autonomous object, free from external reference. Written impartiality reads as a particular partialness. Along similar lines, musicologist Susan McClary has criticized approaches to music as autonomous artifact that limit “musical structure” to denote the form of specific musical works. Arguing against such “idealist abstractions,” she writes:

The power of music—both for dominant cultures and for those who would promote alternatives—resides in its ability to shape the ways we experience our bodies, emotions, subjectivities, desires, and social relations. And to study such effects demands that we recognize the ideological basis of music’s operations—its cultural constructedness (McClary, 2000, pp. 6-7).

For both authors, the ways we describe and engage music constitutes our own subjective—and thus partial—positions. Kingsbury goes on to argue that, “…musicological discourse is not simply talk and writing ‘about music,’ but is also constitutive of music” (ibid, p. 201). New music’s cultural constructedness changes and reacts according to the subjective perspectives of those who produce and consume it. I embrace my own partialness in order to show new music as intricately interwoven collections of sounds, behaviors, practices, and ideologies.

YES HE DID!!!!

2008-11-04T23:10:00.003-05:00

(NYTIMES map at 11:19 eastern)
Barack Hussein Obama has been elected the 44th president of the United States. Thank God. Clearly race relations have come a long way, though I still think that race is a major issue in America. Still, THANK GOD.

14 days

2008-10-23T19:49:00.003-04:00

In fourteen days, we elect a new president. Soon after that I'm supposed to take my comprehensive exam and I hope to have my thesis proposal (chapter 1) completed before that. Even though I know it's possible, a part of me panics at the thought of finishing the first chapter by then. Rita Mead's (1981) excellent book Henry Cowell's New Music 1925-1936 has been both inspirational and detrimental; her book reminds me that there's just so much more research to be done.

Deadlines are good, though.

Who's teaching whom?

2008-10-10T10:28:00.003-04:00

Molly Sheridan, musical gap expert, recently posted a question I had about non-profits. Check it out!

Yarn/Wire kicks off the new season

2008-10-06T22:49:00.010-04:00

Piano/Percussion quartet Yarn/Wire has created a fantastic new site. There are more pics, more sounds, and information about concerts. If anybody has the chance, I'd strongly recommend seeing them live. At a UT Knoxville concert they sounded terrific, very in touch with the music, especially Berio's Linea, and in touch with each other's playing. The Y/W members are also active in other groups as well, and you can read about them here.

Sham on!

2008-09-30T15:52:00.003-04:00

Ben Folds, musician extraordinaire, has released a new album, Way to Normal. It's a bit different from his last album, Songs for Silverman, but then every Ben Folds album is a bit different from its predecessor. A lot of friends at my undergrad loved Folds and got me to love him, too. Here's a single from the latest album, "You don't know me."

Chapter plan

2008-09-29T19:06:00.006-04:00

I'm very excited to announce my chapter plan, which of course may change as I actually write these chapters.

1)Intro
Fundamental thesis: The various musical choices of the groups, including concert dress, stage layout, repertoire, and performance time and venue, form, to varying degrees, part of a social discourse enmeshed in conservatory education, lost hegemony, legacy, individualism, and an emphasis on the new and different. It is this discourse, this polyphonic texture of values, beliefs, and mythical memory that informs my interpretive framework. This rubric examines three interdependent binaries that occur within and between classical and new music culture: traditional/avant-garde, popular/art, modern/postmodern.

• Scope, Parameters, Definitions of Key Terminology & Such
• Discussion of Methodology Employed
• Review of Existing Literature & Need for the Study
• Overview of Thesis Contents & Organization

2) The Groups in Historical/Cultural Context
History of NME’s/Avant Garde
Levine, Horowitz, etc. Modernism, 50’s-60’s Babbitt, Born, IRCAM, alienation, intellectualism, scientist, experimentalism, liberation.
Classical Conservatories
History of Groups in these contexts
Draw on Bordieu

3) Thick description & Ethnography

4) Musical & Performance Elements & Self-Fashionings:
Analysis of: Repertory, pop & classical, conservatory training, Choreography, Clothing, Stage layout

4) Social & Structural Self-Presentations
How do “non-musical/non-performance” aspects reinforce, inform, challenge, supplement, what occurs on stage, in recordings....?
Organization & Structure of Groups
Money, touring, websites, pr, hierarchies, tax returns,
Argument/Interpretation: draw on Foucault, ordered bodies
Feld: Sound structure as social structure

6) Conclusions: Performative Implications and Interpretations of above

I'm not making this up

2008-09-15T16:08:00.004-04:00

Ok, on weekdays the League of American Orchestras sends me their newsletter, "In the News" which exceprts articles and stories about classical music and new music. It's super handy for my thesis, similar to having a little low wage worker just scanning for articles. The last item in today's email headline is titled "Playboy's Classical Babes." Here's the entry:

A feature in the current Playboy titled “Too Hot to Handel” reads, “Because of the studious dedication it requires, classical music has been saddled with a nerdy reputation that’s hard to break. But lately, a handful of sexy women have emerged on the scene who prove that cliché is more than a little dated. Whether they’re on the opera stage, in the concert hall or as close as iTunes, these 10 rising stars show the world that classical music can look as good as it sounds.” Those profiled include sopranos Sarah Coburn, Anna Netrebko, Danielle de Niese; violinists Hilary Hahn, Leila Josefowicz, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Julia Fischer, Janine Jansen, Jennifer Frautschi; and Ariana Ghez, principal oboe of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Of Ghez, the writer states, “Hollywood demands attractiveness in exchange for success and does Ghez ever deliver. She plays a mean oboe, too, and at 28 she’s one of the youngest leaders in a major orchestra. Ghez shot up the ranks after earning a dual degree in English and music from Columbia and Juilliard, playing with the Rochester Philharmonic before landing her big gig in the land of sun.” Readers can vote for the hottest musician on playboy.com.

You can vote and ogle here. By the way, this further complicates my adaptation of Pierre Bourdieu's theory of the avant-garde.

Donuts Anyone?

2008-09-08T15:11:00.008-04:00

I have newfound respect for Tim Rutherford-Johnson, a PhD student in musicology, for keeping up his blog while writing a thesis. Good lord. How on earth can anybody blog while doing this? I write A LOT these days, and it's tough for me to work up the energy to blog. (It sure is fun, though!) Posts have become few and far between, but I'm trying to keep up with things as much as possible.

Today's blog is about donuts. Some groups in my ethnography seem to avoid rep from particular periods, especially the classical and romantic periods. One ensemble in particular has played Renaissance music alongside 20th Century selections. My thesis adviser noted how some vocal groups, Chanticleer for example, similarly emphasize such a repertoire, though with a scoop of spirituals and "folk tunes" thrown in. In the presentation of these musics, a narrative of connectivity often accompanies and provides a way to think about the concert. I made a time line of music with Hildegard of Bingen on one end and [insert young living composer here] on the other. If you imagine cutting the classical and romantic periods out, then connect the remander with the narrative, you can see what I mean. Donuts. Lots of different kinds of donuts with different holes.

I'm not sayind that all groups everywhere use a donut rep, but a lot of them do. I also felt a connection to the donut, b/c I'm not super interested in scholarship on the donut hole music. Hmmmm, I think it's time for some Krispy Kreme.

Wainwright and the Met

2008-08-28T17:26:00.003-04:00

Looks like NYC will have to miss out on Rufus Wainwright's new opera about opera. BTW, I love his music; it's like eating warm chocolate while taking a bubble bath. I don't smoke, but I think I get the idea.

It has begun

2008-08-26T10:56:00.002-04:00

I have officially started to write my thesis. By official, I mean that I've moved from collections of notes, blogs, and recordings to a typed working draft of a chapter with complete thoughts, citations, and topic sentances. I'm simultansously excited and horrified. Excited b/c it's fun and interesting; horrified b/c I'm supposed to send parts of this thing to grad schools. Good lord.

Intro of the Proposal:

This thesis examines new classical music as a culture and centers around ethnographies of three ensembles, Alarm Will Sound, eighth blackbird , and Yarn/Wire. Each group is a registered non-profit performing arts organization focused on the presentation of new classical music, or “new music” as it is called by most of its practitioners. In addition to my participant observation of these groups, I incorporate interviews with performers and composers from outside the above ensembles and several weblogs, including my own, Sound Scenes in order provide a broader cultural context. Finally, I draw on my own experience performing and interacting in new music cultures. Through these various techniques I aim to demonstrate new music cultures as dynamic and complex entities in which aesthetics are constantly negotiated and contested.

Other scholars have studied new music as a cultural phenomenon from various perspectives, though few, if any, scholarly studies treat new music performance as a primary research topic. Ethnomusicologist Georgina Born (1995) has conducted an extensive ethnography of IRCAM in which she illustrated how social forces inform and shape the musical choices of that institution. Working from a more historical perspective, Susan McClary (1989)and Rose Rosengard Subotnik (1991) have each critically examined the trends of isolation and social abstraction in new music cultures. Both McClary and Subotnik criticize composers for their general neglect and disdain of popular music and popular culture at large. In his study of new music composer Steve Reich’s 1965 tape piece It’s Gonna Rain, Martin Scherzinger (2005) has combined a close textual analysis with historical and social research in order to examine resonances in local and global settings. With all of these studies scholars primarily examine composition and the self-presentation of composers and their work. In this thesis I expand upon the above studies by examining the performative and compositional aspects of new music cultures.

New music ensembles often engage two socially important concepts: innovation and legacy of European art music and modernism. Broadly speaking (?), Groups employ classical repertoire and performance rituals in order to establish a connection with the past, but individual ensembles manipulate both in order to create a unique identity. Subotnik has identified individualism as a primary modus operandi of contemporary classical composers, stating how, “…qualitative superiority is attributed to that conception of music which… gives ideological precedence to the composer’s individuality of expression…” (pg. 247, 1991). In seeking such individualism, new music ensembles use signifiers from popular culture to distinguish themselves as relevant in comparison to more traditional classical practices. Such signs include performance dress, various changes to the concert ritual, and, to a limited extant, the exhibition (word choice) of popular music. [should this kick off a long argument?]

There's more, but I don't like over posting. The next part is about establishing a historical context.

Song book

2008-08-22T13:35:00.005-04:00

Matt Marks has combined Still the One and Peter Gabriel's Book of Love into a really cool cover called Still the One and Friends. Check it out here.

...And we're back!

2008-08-15T11:23:00.005-04:00

Well I'm finally checking blogs again after an extended hiatus. I wentto Maryland to visit my grandparents. They don't have the internet (surprise!) so I seized the opportunity to unplug. My girlfriend and I visited the Antietam National Battlefield and the Monocacy Crossing Battlefield with my family, returning home in the evening to watch the Olympics. If you haven't seen Michael Phelps swim, btw, you should check it out. He is incredible. Though I was having a great time, it definitely took me a few days to relax and stop thinking about my thesis, the community orchestra, and the quickly approaching start of term. Abby, my gf, was a great coach, though and we ended up really enjoying ourselves.

Upon checking my blog subscriptions it has become totally clear that the blog world never rests; I had 146 unread blogposts, compared to a daily average of 15-30. I never read all the blogs for a day, as it takes too much time. It's like having in-depth conversations back to back in an endless cycle. Instead I try to focus on three to five that I really like, then skim the others. I've also learned not to get bogged down playing catchup.

School has started here at UT Knoxville. It's so weird to shift back into high gear after summer. I did a lot of stuff over the break, but it will probably take a few more days to get going again.

Complex

2008-08-07T13:29:00.003-04:00

I've been checking out and commenting on a few blogs that discuss the idea of complexity. In new music communities, minimalism is generally considered not to be complex while other music, e.g. Elliot Carter's Piano Concerto, can be called complex. Here's a few links to the ensuing discussions.

Tim J's brings up several opinions, including my own.

Kyle G's lengthy post considers the issue from a composer's perspective.

And, of course, the ever diligent DJA makes sees it all.

It is interesting that people refer to this issue as the "complexity war." I suppose it does lead to heated discussion. In line with my ethnomusicology training, I don't care to call any music simple, though prior to my grad training, I definitely turned my nose up to different music at times. These days I tend to agree with anthropologist Victor Turner who states, "in matters of religion, as of art, there are no "simpler" peoples, only some peoples with simpler technologies than our own. Man's "imaginative" and "emotional" life is always and everywhere rich and complex" (The Ritual Process, 1969, p. 3).