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29 November 2008
Sat, 29 Nov 2008 01:55:21 GMTGlenn Gould: Variations, by Himself and His Friends
McGreevy, John, ed.
Short pieces, written by Gould and acquaintances of his, some before and some after his death. Makes me want to get a ratty old chair and start using it whenever I play piano, Gould comes off as far beyond amazing.
I took piano for a year or two when I was a kid, and hit all the mercilessly overplayed pieces (played through most of the Suzuki method if I remember, also Für Elise and Rondo Alla Turka plus others I’m sure). I couldn’t ever figure out how to read music, having relied mostly on my good ears, decent memory, and a willingness for both my Mom and teacher to show me how to do the things I couldn’t read. Pretty quick I got frustrated with recitals, in which I took very little joy either performing or observing, and that plus my frustration with those damn black circles that I couldn’t figure out how to read got me to give it up.
I started playing piano again maybe a bit more than a year ago now, motivated by a Gould recording of the Anglaise from French Suite 3 in b. I’d heard the tune and it was beautiful, so I learned it (the RH, ‘melody’) on my mandolin. One thing led to another and I eventually decided to pick out the upper voice on the family piano, at which point my mom realized what I was playing and went back into the closet with our piano music in it and pulled out its score. I was playing it surprisingly well, and somewhere in here resolved to make a copy of the 33 bars and take it back to school with me to try and pluck it out in the basement of the HFA.
Eventually I figured it out. I’ve always known which notes were which in the staff, but for some reason never been able to read anything fluently. It’s very much a stop–and–go process for me, and I’ll be dammed if I can read more than one note at a time, so forget left and right hand together. Truthfully, I can’t pretend to read any music at all until I’ve listened to it enough that it’s already there in my head, and I can almost just as well completely reconstruct it with my fingers and the keys—at least for the stronger of the two lines, picking apart Bach’s contrapuntal stuff this way isn’t something I’m much good at.
Since then I’ve picked up a few more of the movements from the same suite (Allemande, Courante, Sarabande; not in that order) and I’m now working on the Gigue. This fall I signed up for bonified piano lessons at school, got hooked up with the most experienced teacher and it’s been very good. Last lesson she had me play through everything I knew (although as it usually goes we get distracted and end up just talking about stuff) and after the second part she had to ask who it was on my recording. I mentioned Gould, and she said that’s what she’d have guessed. Which hopefully means that I’m playing it well; if my inspiration can show through that well I can’t be butchering the notes. But anyway, all that was to say that she went off into the room where she keeps her mountain of music and books and brought this one out for me, so I went at reading it.
Summary: Glenn Gould is awesome—and not in the trivialized popular sense of the word—but take it back to its roots: “Full of awe, profoundly reverential” (OED). In part it’s the Bach that has proved to be his touchstone. But there’s far more there than just the scored music. My teacher also gave me a disk of someone else playing through the French Suites so that I could compare. I listened to it on the drive home for thanksgiving. It was a beautiful drive, blue sky and a thin coat of wind–blown snow through the prairie. The music mostly sat in the background, I didn’t pay much attention. I didn’t have any issues with it until the third suite came up—my suite—and then I was pissed. I’ve listened to all of Gould’s recordings of the same at least once, but iTunes shows that I’ve mostly focused on the ones I’m working at learning. I’ve listened to the movements of the third suite 37, 22, 73, 13, 68, and 14 times, respectively. That’s for the 6 movements, totalling 8:58 as Gould interprets them. It’s also a lower bound, because when I do listen to them I like to repeatedly start back at the beginning without finishing the track, which doesn’t get counted as a ‘play.’ So they’re pretty well burned into my head. I can sit at a piano and play four of them from memory. I can sing the jig, which is what I’m working on figuring out right now.
When they played through my car speakers, coming from someone other than Gould, I could hardly listen. There’s absolutely a world of difference there. It probably shows a lot about how well I actually read music that I didn’t notice all the amazing things Gould had done with these scores, I had his version in my head and whenever I didn’t know where to put my fingers I’d check the music, but I’d always be trying to play what I knew from listening as opposed to the scratches on paper that I don’t really understand. The pianist in question is Andrei Gavrilov, not a man without his chops. But there’s not a measure that I’d listen to again. Midway through the third, without remembering who was listed as the pianist for these I decided they sounded all too ‘russian’—either pounding along or tinkling slowly, carelessly melodramatic while lacking any sense of fluidity; and holy god, the tempo was always wrong! Surely enough, I checked and saw a guy named Andrei on the case. Gould’s rendition strikes me as much more buoyant; I don’t know, but if you threw both Gould’s and Gavrilov’s recordings of these suites into the water somewhere the former would always be swimming along comfortably and gracefully, while Gavrilov’s would be stroking madly just to keep above water, and only partially succeeding.
Reading through this made me feel the same way I do when I listen to Gould’s works, and how I sometimes feel while playing the few that I can play myself, heavily grafted from Gould’s vision. There’s a bit of rapture, forgetting everything except for the feel of the keys under my fingers or the sounds snaking in through my ears. It’s such a pity that Gould went when he did. Even though he might have been well on his way to giving up piano entirely—in the same manner he gave up public performances—he was doing tremendous things outside playing with TV and radio, why do all the best have to die young etc. I finished up the car ride home listening to the first disk of him playing the WTC, feeling the need to wash Gavrilov’s Bach out of my system, and it was wonderful.
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05 July 2008
Sat, 05 Jul 2008 08:35:23 GMTPlaying the Piano for Pleasure
A fun read but not much learned. I already practice in mostly the same way this guy delineates, by taking one piece and working it until its perfect and setting it into my (tiny) repertoire.
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23 February 2008
Sat, 23 Feb 2008 17:39:55 GMTOn the wonders of the Saturday schedule of a certain radio station:
- Starts the morning off with bluegrass, which runs til lunch.
- Followed by a nice folksy 2 hours of Mountain Stage
- Then two wonderful hours of String Theory, acoustic/world/otherwise interesting and obscure tunes.
- Tent Show radio, in a similar vein to Mountain Stage.
- All capped off with two hours of Celtic Nation. And now it’s 7pm.
So you should all start listening. 88.5fm in minneapolis, web stream available.
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14 April 2007
Sat, 14 Apr 2007 12:30:14 GMTRedemption Song
Joe Strummer the Movie has been brought to my attention (hat tip). Coming next month.
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04 January 2007
Thu, 04 Jan 2007 23:34:17 GMT HumoresqueKjell Olsen1966 days agoI heard the first few bars of this and my heart jumped. Antonin Dvorak; played by Isaac Stern (Violin) + Yo yo Ma (Cello), Art Tatum (Piano), and Chet Atkins (Guitar).
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01 November 2006
Wed, 01 Nov 2006 16:11:17 GMTWhisper the truth
Into your children’s ears
Let them know
Let them understand
Let them hearThe song of the blackbird is mighty loud
Through the evening mist
The moon is up and it looks so proud
To be lookin’ down on a night, on a night like thisWilliam Elliott Whitmore - Dry
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13 August 2006
Sun, 13 Aug 2006 19:35:00 GMTAnd love will protect you
To the edge of the wood
And a monster will get you
And love does no goodBonnie 'Prince' Billy - Even if Love
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22 June 2006
Thu, 22 Jun 2006 18:07:28 GMT Lauryn Hillvia Kjell Olsen2162 days agoWhere’s she been?
“Fantasy is what people want, but reality is what they need,” she said during the concert. “I’ve just retired from the fantasy part.”
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15 June 2006
Thu, 15 Jun 2006 17:03:00 GMT Gnarls Barkley - Crazyvia Kjell Olsen2169 days agoThere are all kinds of videos of this getting performed floating around the internet, but this one truly deserves the link. Fucking a. (If this is what MTV is becoming, I’m definitely about to start watching it.)
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13 June 2006
Tue, 13 Jun 2006 06:46:00 GMTHoles in the ozone the size of Brazil
Barges of trash in the chewable breeze
Pools of industrial wasteland paté
Sulfur dioxide dissolving the trees
Pretty soon it will all end with a boom
Why am I painting the living room?Best song ever.
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10 May 2006
Wed, 10 May 2006 22:17:28 GMT Manu Chaovia Kjell Olsen2205 days agoI was wondering why I had such a time not just understanding this guy, but having any idea at all what was coming from his mouth. It’s because he sings in 7 different languages.
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05 May 2006
Fri, 05 May 2006 12:59:00 GMTAn older lady walks up, greets us with a smile
asks how we both doin, and sits down
she knows what its like to grow up in the south
civil rights when the whites was holdin us down
I sort of figured to myself that even though her times were tougher
they still took time out to speak to one anotherwell look at us, me and this young brother
actin too proud to play down or speak to each other
so inside I feel the shame not sure howto but I wanna change
and as long as I’m alive then the fact remains
that it’s never too late for us to break the chains -
22 April 2006
Sat, 22 Apr 2006 08:46:50 GMTNobody wants to touch me, man. They’re afraid. They think it would be a car crash. They don’t realize, the car’s already crashed. And there’s been a nuclear explosion. And we’re the last people alive on Earth.
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20 April 2006
Thu, 20 Apr 2006 21:10:00 GMTI’m laying out the table for to welcome you back home
I’m calling on the angels for to lighten up your load
I’m calling on the majors to end this general despair
In the graveyard at inchigeela, in black clothing, i’ll be thereTed Leo And The Pharmacists - Tell Balgeary, Balgury Is Dead
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31 March 2006
Fri, 31 Mar 2006 10:46:53 GMT BLDGBLOG: Super Reefvia Kjell Olsen2245 days agoIn other words, locked into the rocks of Europe is the largest musical instrument ever made: awaiting a million more years of wind and rain and even war to carve that reef into a flute, a buried saxophone, made of fossilized glass, pocketed with caves and indentations, reflecting the black light of uncountable eclipses until the earth gives out.
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11 February 2006
Sat, 11 Feb 2006 10:59:13 GMT Canon in D Guitarvia Kjell Olsen2293 days agoRock Pachelbel.
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24 December 2005
Sat, 24 Dec 2005 11:39:00 GMT Courtney Love Does The Mathvia Kjell Olsen2342 days agoRecord labels are to musicians just as land owners in the early 20th century were to sharecroppers.
Once you get signed, if you produce a record under a label, that label will own that record, the rights to that record, and everything you did on that record, in perpetuity. Forever. All thanks to record label lobbyists and our sleazy government copyright laws.
Stealing our copyright reversions in the dead of night while no one was looking, and with no hearings held, is piracy.
The 273,000 working musicians in the US make $30,000 on average. The music industry makes $40 billion a year.
+10 to Courtney Love, not only is she right on, but she closed on a quote from Snow Crash.
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15 December 2005
Thu, 15 Dec 2005 12:17:18 GMT Ted LeoKjell Olsen2351 days agoTo this day, people come up to the record table and think that they have the right to say stuff to me like, “I’ll take this one but this one—that’s a trainwreck, you know it’s a trainwreck, right?” I’m just like, “Get away from my merch table!” Ted Leo
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14 December 2005
Wed, 14 Dec 2005 11:23:00 GMT Dylan to jockey radio showKjell Olsen2352 days agoStarting this march, on XM Satellite.
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12 December 2005
Mon, 12 Dec 2005 11:17:51 GMT CH friend Aziz Ansari is forced to carry around a boombox playing the world's shittiest mixtape.via Kjell Olsen2354 days agoNew York comedian loses bet and is forced to walk around the city blasting the ten ‘worst songs ever’ on a honking boombox.
Even the 12 year old girls gave him mean looks.
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04 December 2005
Sun, 04 Dec 2005 19:46:53 GMT The Hype Machine - 52 Songs of 2005via Kjell Olsen2362 days ago52 most hyped songs on audioblogs. Streamable. Definitely worth visiting.
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02 December 2005
Fri, 02 Dec 2005 19:22:12 GMT Subscriber Features - Last.fmvia Kjell Olsen2364 days agoLast.fm bumped me to subscriber for the rest of the month, and man is this place cool. I really like that you can see who’s taken a look at your profile, and they will generate you an image of your weekly tracks:
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15 November 2005
Tue, 15 Nov 2005 08:47:00 GMT Pulse Music: heiruspecs tour diaryvia Kjell Olsen2381 days agoHeiruspecs are a pretty sweet band out of MN, give them a listen.
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01 November 2005
Tue, 01 Nov 2005 12:04:04 GMT The Hold Steady, live in the 89.3 the Current studiovia Kjell Olsen2395 days agoNice recording, the Hold Steady are quick getting to be one of my favorites.
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18 October 2005
Tue, 18 Oct 2005 18:34:00 GMT THIS BIRD HAS FLOWNvia Kjell Olsen2409 days agoIndie rock tribute to the Beatles Rubber Soul. Looks amazing. Stream of Ted Leo covering Looking Through You.
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04 September 2005
Sun, 04 Sep 2005 12:28:05 GMT Music Cherry: The Killers' "Smile Like You Mean It" as covered by David GrayKjell Olsen2453 days agoThis song rocks, I can’t get over it.
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09 August 2005
Tue, 09 Aug 2005 14:49:22 GMT misterk's User Page - Last.fmKjell Olsen2479 days agoAudioscrobbler relaunched, and it’s sure snappier looking now. I don’t know about features, but the ambiguity between audioscrobbler and last.fm is more confusing then ever now. Still a cool place.
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05 July 2005
Tue, 05 Jul 2005 21:44:00 GMT CoverFlowvia Kjell Olsen2514 days agoBrowse your album’s cover art in a gorgeous Aqua window. It just feels good to do this.
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23 May 2005
Mon, 23 May 2005 19:35:00 GMT MPR: 89.3 The Current: PlaylistKjell Olsen2557 days agoWhat a good station. I was surfing around and came to their site, and choked the minute I saw that I had missed this arrangement of songs – it just looks so perfect, like lots of their programming.
Songs recently played:
The Decemberists – The Sporting Life
Paul Westerberg – Lookin’ Up In Heaven
Low – Stars Gone Out
Sage Francis – Slow Down GhandiThe current is like KEXP but from minneapolis, and on my radio. Points off for not having a radio stream that works with iTunes, but it works with mplayer or vlc.
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03 May 2005
Tue, 03 May 2005 20:29:23 GMT The Observer | OMM | Oasis, Don't Believe The TruthKjell Olsen2577 days agoBoy, can I not wait.
At last, they’ve rediscovered what made them great
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08 April 2005
Fri, 08 Apr 2005 09:01:55 GMT Josh Rubin: Cool Hunting: The EarBud Challengevia Kjell Olsen2602 days agoI was dreaming about a nice set of canal phones on a nice loud dc-9 flight the other day – I want some. But they cost so much!
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14 March 2005
Mon, 14 Mar 2005 23:58:00 GMT Wired 11.12: The Key to Geniusvia Kjell Olsen2627 days agoAnother article on savant abilities, this time about a kid with musical and logistical talents:
When Matt was 6, he confided to his mother, “My mind is made of math problems.” Diane started buying him math workbooks for kids twice his age. He zipped through them so quickly, she learned to hide a few in a drawer so he’d have something to work on the following day.
Then one night, Diane and Larry heard a melody coming from downstairs. It was their son, playing “London Bridge” on a toy keyboard. Diane brought Matt into the family room and introduced him to the middle C on the piano. Within a day, he was devouring music books as hungrily as he had math books.As we finish lunch, Matt asks me in his distinctively high-pitched voice, “Did you know that numbers can be friendly and amicable?” He means friendly and amicable in the math-geek sense – numbers that can be factored into one another – but I also felt he was using those words in their ordinary sense. Matt is intimate with numbers. They come to him in dreams and inspire him to write songs. One of his tunes on the album Groovin’ on Mount Everest is called “Forty-Seven” – a number he feels is “lonely” because when he asks people to think up a random number, no one ever chooses it.
The brains of typical children grow in response to lessons learned from the environment – that was one of the significant upgrades in the evolution of Homo sapiens. As new stimuli are absorbed, the neurons in the cortex adapt gradually, and synaptic connections are forged or eliminated. Our brains are cast in the image of our experience.
The overgrowth of the brain tissue of autistic kids, however, is random and automatic, a reaction to an unknown stimulus – perhaps testosterone or some toxic agent in the environment. The result, says Courchesne, is an onslaught of neural noise that makes the infant lose the ability to make sense of its world.Hermelin and her colleagues found that savants also use rule-based strategies for calendar calculating. For a long time, the assumption was that they memorized tens of thousands of day-date pairings during months of obsessive practice. But as in music, the researchers discovered that when figuring dates in the distant past or future, savants supplement their prodigious memories with algorithms they derive from the cycles of the calendar.
This oddly adhesive memory is what binds together every domain of savant skill. In the brains of savants, Treffert believes, associative memory systems located in the higher regions of the cortex fail, and older parts of the brain – the ancient pathways in the basal ganglia known as habit memory – take over.
Habit memory is Pavlovian, an archive of involuntary stimulus/response loops – the memory that never forgets how to ride a bike. To reproduce a Bach sonata with slavish accuracy requires an inner tape recorder and a book of rules. But to play Bach with fire and originality requires Proustian memory, with its nuanced webs of association and metaphor. This higher-order memory, like a living text, is constantly under revision. It’s not just that savants remember everything, says Treffert, it’s that they are unable to forget anything, like the protagonist in Jorge Luis Borges’ short story, “Funes the Memorious.”The drawing abilities of most savant artists, for example, burst forth with no preparation, no training, and no practice – as if their skills were already there, fully fledged, needing only access to a pencil or a brush.
Children who seem to come into the world with profound artistic gifts have been objects of fascination for centuries, but recent discoveries suggest we may all carry a savant inside us waiting to be born.Miller formulated a provocative hypothesis to explain the fact that as some FTD patients get worse, they also get better. He posited that the dementia does not create artistic powers in these patients, it uncovers them. The disorder switches off inhibitory signals from the left temporal lobes, enabling suppressed talents in the right hemisphere to flourish. (emphasis mine)
“It looks as though there’s a critical period when every infant has the opportunity to learn absolute pitch, if they grow up in a culture where pitch is associated with meaning,” Deutsch explains. By starting music training early, every child might be able to preserve this inborn ability.
“Our knowledge and expertise blind us,” Snyder told me last spring. “If we could switch off our conceptual mind, we could have a momentary literal viewing of the world.”
Along the same lines – savant art
books to read: “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat”, “Extraordinary People: Understanding Savant Syndrome”, (Oliver Sacks).
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17 February 2005
Thu, 17 Feb 2005 19:26:32 GMT MonkeyFilter | The (in)complete musicblog list:via Kjell Olsen2652 days agoEver want to read musicblogs? There’s about 800 of em here, take your pick.
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Also somewhat recently
