Well, I’ve just returned from an excellent concert at Frank Gehry’s wonderful Walt Disney Concert Hall (photo at left by Tom Bonner). The Los Angeles Philharmonic (the Hall has been its home since it opened in Fall 2003) had as guest conductor Andras Schiff, who is one of those marvellous people who can direct from the piano while playing remarkably complex material. It was a program of Mendelssohn (String Symphony No. 10 in B minor), Schumann (Introduction and Allegro appasionato, Op. 92), Haydn (Piano Concerto in D major, Hob. XVIII: 11) and closing with Schumann again (Symphony No. 1 in B flat major, Op. 38 -Spring).

Schiff was just fantastic, and the orchestra was really solid, as usual. He played the Haydn with delight and a level of electricity that I’ve not seen for a while brought out of that material, even though its brightness is quite conducive to that sort of treatment.

So much about watching an orchestra while listening to it fascinates me, and I love having seats that get me as close as possible to watch what is going on. Different things fascinate me on different evenings, depending upon my mood. One thing that was particularly interesting in both Schumann pieces, even though separated in time quite a bit, was how the composer splits some of the lines across the instrumentation, starting a lot with french horns but then breaking it across to trumpets and some interesting doubling with flutes and oboe. I’ve not noticed it quite so clearly before in this work. Part of this may have been my mood, and part of it may be the fact that the acoustics in the Disney Hall are so amazing that I’ve (re)discovered aspects of several pieces that I thought were familiar by listening to them in that place. Something about the careful design of the space has produced the remarkable ability to separate out every instrument in the orchestra -even when at full size (which is was not this evening)- and allow you to hear them clearly.

The other thing that catches my attention a lot are the musicians who are not doing something the whole time. This can be interesting for a host of reasons, and not just the obvious, which is your curiosity about what they must be thinking about while waiting, and when are they going to come in. This is often the timpanist, but it is quite easy to work out when they are going to be needed most of the time. But tonight was a special treat for me. They had a triangle guy on the last piece! If you don’t know the piece very well -and I did not- it is not clear when he’s going to come in, and so you can sit and try to anticipate depending upon how the music is developing. The piece’s popular title is “Spring” so there’s clearly going to be some need in several places for bright sparkly springy bits in both quiet and loud places. Challenge to get into the mind of the composer there and see if you can anticipate. The other thing that was notable was that Mr. Triangle had not one but two chairs. He had one in which he sat in a state of readiness for the majority of the piece, but eventually he did stir himself, and pick up his triangle and one of his two tiny metal traingle-beater-sticks (do you “beat” a triangle or “tickle” it? And why do you need two sticks?) he had carefully laid out. He did his thing for a short while and then he sat in the taller chair, as he was to play soon after. I think of that second chair as his chair of preparedness – in the other chair he’s merely in readiness – or is it the other way around? I’ve enlarged the picture of the orchestra that I snapped secretly (no flash or noise of course) to show you the triangle guy, his chairs, and his equipment.

Well, while I was watching and listening to him in action, I began to wonder: Why is a triangle a triangle? Would a square sound as good? Or a pentagon or other polygon? Are triangles equilateral ones or isosceles? I think the latter, but I’m not sure. And was there a reason for his having two ticklers/beaters? (He did swop from one to another at one point, and I listened for a tone difference but was not sure if I heard it.) There’s got to be some interesting physics in the vibrations of such shapes….is the triangle shape just a traditional one or is there some experimental reason behind the preference for that shape?

Well, I’ll go to bed with these important questions on my mind, along with the pressing puzzle of what on earth to wear to tomorrow night’s Hallowe’en party in West Hollywood. Apparently it’s a 70s disco theme. I’ve no clothes for that….can’t I just go as a scary Physicist from the 21st Century, i.e., me? At parties, women (and men) already run screaming when I tell them what I do anyway, at any time of year, so I don’t need a costume.

-cvj

I just heard that one of my favourite Jazz pianists and vocalists, Shirley Horn, has died at age 71. I can think of few people who have mastered the mingling of voice and piano -in any musical genre- to quite the level she had. She’s one of the first vocalists (or pianists) I think of reaching for when I want to immerse myself in some musical work that is clear and uncluttered, slow and unhurried. Her phrasing is just incredibly thoughtful. Her clever use of space is up there with Miles Davis’, and indeed he loved her work (he was not a big fan of singers in general – early Sinatra is one of the few other vocalists I can think of that he liked, again for great phrasing) and he encouraged her early in her career.

Here’s a website with a discography. Two of my later favourites are Softly, and You Won’t Forget Me. Have a look at today’s Washington Post article on her life. You can also find video, audio and a transcript of a PBS Newshour Jim Lehrer 2004 interview with her here.

May she live on through her wonderful music. She can end this post better than I can, from words of the song Here’s To Life that often ring in my head:

No complaints and no regrets; I still believe in chasing dreams and placing bets…

Here’s to life — here’s to love — here’s to you.

-cvj

…And all four of my co-bloggers have spilled their beverage. Sorry dudes!

I mean Kate Bush. Just to illustrate how out of touch I am with everything these days, I learned from my mother (who is visiting me) that she has released a new album.

Anyway, this is a big deal, at least in the UK (the release, not my being out of touch). Apparently the buzz about this is just huge over there. She has not released an album in 12 years, and this one is supposed to be really rather good. We shall see (hear).

I was simply in love with Kate Bush and her music as a teenager. It was not a sex thing (inasmuch as anything can be far removed from sex as a teenage boy); instead I was in love with just how different her music was while still remaining both interesting, tuneful, bizarre, and beautiful. (And often very funny.) You see, I loved listening to things other than the standard 80′s UK pop everyone else was into at school, and I went to great lengths in pursuit of this, and the results were not always interesting and enjoyable at the same time (you may recall me writing about being into obscure German electronic music as a teenager). But Kate Bush managed to be different and all of those other things I said above at the same time. She was clearly a genius, at least to my mind back then, producing all sorts of tremendous musical ideas and sounds.

Always being a supporter of the underdog, I probably secretly enjoyed it a bit that few others seemed to appreciate her tremendous talent, so that I could fiercely defend her. Women musical artists in the genre in those days were mostly supposed to just be pretty and sing stuff they were told to, not sing (with a truly haunting voice), dance, play an instrument, write, produce, mix, edit….etc…(I know there were a few other exceptions). And as a bonus, she showed up (with a Fairlight CMI!!**) on the cover of some new magazine I was into entitled something like “Electronics and Music Hobbyist” which had pages and pages of stuff on the internal circuitry of various sound synthesizers and sound modifying devices, my big hobby at the time, so she was right up my alley.

Anyway, a lot of you won’t even know who Kate Bush is, being either too young or from the wrong country. Well, so many artists copy her to some extent, so you’ve heard her through others. Think Tori Amos is terribly original? She’s channelling Kate Bush. Think you’re terribly cool listening to Bjork? Direct decendent of Kate Bush. Into Fiona Apple or any of the 1700 or so “talented girl singing with piano” artists? All Kate’s children. To get straight to the source, go out and get “The Kick Inside”, and then “The Dreaming” and “Hounds of Love”.

Here’s an excellent article from the Scotsman on her career trajectory and the recent buzz about the new release. And here is a short Guardian article, and a Wikipedia entry. And all around the web you can easily find more material, including an authorized download of the first single from the album.

I have to rush off now. My new (minor?) celebrity neighbour seems to be having his first party and his guests seem to be being valet-parked (the horror!). I have to go and look a bit disapproving from the balcony.

There goes the neighbourhood…

-cvj

(**Update: The exclamation marks are to indicate that this was a big deal back then. That piece of kit was every in electronic music hobbyist’s wildest dreams.)

So today you are hiding, since the first three days of the week were taken up with teaching and committee work, and because tomorrow will have at least two committee meetings in the middle of the day. You need a full day to get back into full immersion for working on this paper you’re writing. You’ve no plans for exciting and varied writing venues today, as described in a previous post. This is because now you’re more into the part of the writing that can benefit from just sitting in one comfortable and familiar place for a long time, staring, scribbling, typing, mumbling, and drinking lots of tea and coffee…

…and listening to music. Today, you woke up in the mood for Cassandra Wilson’s music, and so while you write you’ll be listening for the entire day to every album she’s ever recorded. Blue Skies is one of your favourites, as is Blue Light ‘Til Dawn. And the recent Glamoured, has many wonderful reworkings of several modern standards from several genres such as pop, jazz, blues, country…(for example, Sting’s “Fragile”, while the original is a favourite of yours, never sounded better, or made more sense, before her version, and you’ve been listening a lot to her wonderful version of Willie Nelson’s “Crazy” recently). But you’ll not just be listening to her later stuff, you’ll be digging way back into work closer to her earlier, more experimental M-base collective work too.

Happy Hiding Away, Writing, And Listening To Cassandra Wilson Day*

-cvj

(*After the excellent blog Girls Are Pretty .)

When I was growing up in the early to middle eighties, I spent a lot of time ignoring the popular music of the time, and pointedly listening to semi-obscure German electronic music. It took a lot to get me to admit to liking anything most of my school friends (or come to think of it, mostly anyone else in the country) was listening to. Yep, I must have been pretty annoying at times. (Amusingly, the other day I had an ironic mood swing and went to Amoeba Music and bought a Madness album and drove around the city with songs like “Our House” playing on the CD player….)

Back in those days, I also spent a lot of time in my room with a hot soldering iron, building circuits of various sorts. (If I had not breathed in so much soldering lead fumes and soldering flux, goodness knows what dizzying heights of intellectual achievement I could have reached. Raspy voice: “I could ‘a been a contender…”)

There is a connection between those two paragraphs. Electronic generation and modification of sound. I spent of lot of time making weird noises in my room with the aid of transistors, resistors, capacitors, inductors, and all those wonderful things you hardly see any more when you open up a modern electonic device.

Why am I telling you this? Well, Robert Moog, one of the masters, a pioneer of the field of electronic synthesizers -who without a doubt indirectly inspired what I was doing in my room, since everybody I listened to was playing his instruments or decendents of them- died on Sunday. Those hobbies of mine certainly helped me focus my interests and skills along the way to becoming a scientist, so I’d like to thank him for whatever role his work played in shaping my trajectory.

I heard the news on NPR and there is a collection of links and sounds from several NPR segments at a nice page they’ve built, which is here. I also saw some links at Swoon.

Thanks for the sounds, sir!

-cvj

I’ve just heard that Ibrahim Ferrer has died. You can read a BBC news story about this here. You can learn more about this wonderful musician, who had a most beautiful voice (which engages you whether or not you speak Spanish), here, and you can learn more about the Buena Vista Social Club project here. (I’d credit the photo if I could, but I don’t know the original source. It was on the album cover of “Buena Vista Social Club Presents Ibrahim Ferrer” which is great.) Several of the original masters from that project have died now, Ferrer and Ruben Gonzalez being two of my favourites.

Music – and life in general – are very much richer for their contributions.

May they live forever!

-cvj