Agnus Dei, AJ Harbison

At my church, every Sunday morning we follow a set liturgy or order of service--the prayers, songs and Scripture readings change, but the structure of the service is always the same. Early in the service, there's a time of confession where the congregation reads a prayer aloud, and then prays in silence for 45 seconds. Following this we sing the "Agnus Dei," a traditional liturgical text originally used in the Catholic Mass: "Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, have mercy on us / Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, have mercy on us / Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, grant us peace." The Agnus Dei that we sing every week was composed by a member of the church, David Hlebo, who is a composer and musician who plays sax and flute on the church's worship team. The Agnus Dei that he wrote is amazing. It's very simple, and probably most lay people would think it adequate but unremarkable; but from a compositional standpoint, it comes close to technical perfection, and it works really well at the point in the service when it's used.

After becoming a member of the church myself, I thought it would be fun to try to compose another Agnus Dei that could alternate with Hlebo's version. (I suggested this to the pastor, and he was all for the idea, since he said "We've sung the same song every week for the past seven years"). It took me a long time to come up with a good idea, because Hlebo's version was so ingrained in my head and so good--most of my early thoughts were far too similar to his. But eventually I came up with a melody and chord progression I was happy with.

My Agnus Dei is in 6/8 time, in C minor. Since the piece is for congregational singing, I wanted it to be a simple, almost folk-like melody that would be easy to catch onto quickly; and since it's intended for use in the confessional part of the service, I wanted it to be solemn and reverent without being too slow or boring. I wrote along with the melody a suggested piano accompaniment; it's not too exciting, but it has some cool moments and it helps to give the piece some movement and energy. At the moment I don't have the ability to record the piano part, but in the future I will, and I'll let you know when that happens. In the meantime, you can head over to the Agnus Dei page on my website to listen to a scratch recording with guitar. Leave a comment here and let me know what you think!

Agnus Dei, AJ Harbison

Christmas In May

I had a dream as I was lying in bed this morning that it was the Christmas season; and in my dream it was the first day that they started playing Christmas music 24/7 in stores, restaurants, etc. I like Christmas music a lot. There are a great deal of good Christmas songs, both sacred and secular, and while there are innumerable bad versions of them, there are also many creative and excellent ones. And I love the feel of Christmas that holiday music injects into the atmosphere. One of the sure signs Christmas was coming when I was growing up was when my mother would start to cycle through her Christmas CDs on the living room stereo (including an amazing CD by Robert Shaw, which I don't seem to remember well enough to be able to find on the internet); we didn't often have music playing in the house, but Christmas music was a sine qua non of the holiday season for me.

All of that as a brief aside to say: I've decided to enter the Welcome Christmas Carol Contest this year. It's an annual composition contest, sponsored by the American Composers Forum of which I am a member, that asks composers to write new carols using a different given instrumentation each year; this year it's for mixed chorus and viola. The text can be "sacred or secular, medieval to present, appropriate for concert setting," and I decided to ask my brother to write a new Christmas text because I think he'd be good at that sort of thing, and he accepted.

Should be a lot of fun! I'll keep you posted as we make progress on our new Christmas carol.

P.S. TLB is nearing its first birthday! I can hardly believe it's been that long already. And as we near May 26th, there are some changes in the works. I'm contemplating a redesign of the site to make it look a little more professional, and also a move from Blogger to WordPress (thanks to Mike's persistent suggestions). I'm also planning to make a big announcement here on May 26th--so stay tuned!

Christmas In May

Watchmen Soundtrack, Tyler Bates

As you may have seen on my Twitter page (or the sidebar on the right), I went to see the movie Watchmen on Thursday night. It's the only film adaptation of what is generally accepted to be the greatest graphic novel/comic book of all time, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' work of the same name. It was considered "unfilmable" for over twenty years, but director Zack Snyder (of 300 fame) did a terrific job and made a movie worthy of the book. I've heard that he used the graphic novel basically as a storyboard for the movie, and many scenes are recreated almost shot-for-shot; overall it's probably the most faithful book-to-movie adaptation I've ever seen. The performances were all great, especially Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach and Patrick Wilson as Dan Dreiberg/Nite Owl II. One of my few reservations was that the movie didn't give the Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias character enough credit--he was too much of a pretty boy and not enough emphasis was given to his intelligence--but overall I vastly enjoyed it. (IMDB's trivia page on the movie is rather extensive, and is an interesting source of information on the long process of making the movie as well as a compendium of many of the subtle references made to the book in the movie. Well worth checking out, if you're interested.)

I really enjoyed the music, as well. Most of the soundtrack consisted of songs from the time in which the movie takes place--"The Times They Are A-Changin'" by Bob Dylan, "All Along The Watchtower" performed by Jimi Hendrix, "Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen, "The Sound Of Silence" by Simon and Garfunkel, etc. Some of the songs play with the action happening on screen; for example, "The Times They are A-Changin'" plays over a historical montage setting the context of the movie and "The Sound Of Silence" plays over the graveyard scene of The Comedian's funeral. Other songs play against the action, for example when "Unforgettable" performed by Nat King Cole plays over the intense violence of The Comedian's murder at the beginning. Both uses are very effective in their own way, and I was impressed at how well all of the songs (which already exist in a set form, and were chosen because of their fame in the era) were put to use in the film. It's also worth noting that many of the songs were referenced in the original graphic novel, several being the basis of issue titles; another example of Snyder paying homage to the source material in as many ways as possible.

The movie also uses several "classical" cues like Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" for one of the Vietnam War scenes (the piece is referenced in the book, though not in that context). During the scene of Dr. Manhattan's origin story, which takes place on Mars, the music played is Philip Glass' "Prophecies," from the movie Koyaanisqatsi; the eerie, otherworldly quality of Glass' minimalism is a perfect complement to the isolation and (literally) otherworldliness of the scene.

I enjoyed the actual score by Tyler Bates too (many if not all of the choices of pop songs would have been made by the music supervisor). It was unintrusive, and mostly consisted of background atmosphere-type cues. The one moment that stood out, however, was the scene where Laurie and Daniel (aka Silk Spectre II and Nite Owl II) decide to put their costumes on and go out adventuring, like they did in the old days. The music grew to a stirring, inspirational feel as the characters gained confidence and sensed old excitements coming back. The first thing that stood out was the music's subtle homage paid to the Batman Begins and The Dark Knight scores, by James Newton Howard and Hans Zimmer, in its rhythmic string pattern (I wrote about the Dark Knight score back in August). But scarcely before I began smiling at recognizing the reference, the score paid a much less subtle homage to Don Davis' score for The Matrix, particularly part of the last cue "Anything Is Possible" which occurs when Neo comes back from the dead and realizes all of his powers inside the Matrix. It was practically Bates' paraphrase of the Matrix cue. Both of the score references were to "superheroes," of a sort, and indicated strong decisions to take up superhero-like powers--which, of course, was exactly what was happening in that scene in Watchmen. It was rather brilliant.

Watchmen was a great movie with a great soundtrack. The caveat is that there's a lot of blood'n'guts and a few sex scenes, but I would recommend the movie highly to anyone who enjoyed the graphic novel. I rarely purchase film score albums, and even more rarely do I purchase soundtrack albums; but I'm considering both from this film. Well done, Zack Snyder and Tyler Bates.

Watchmen Soundtrack, Tyler Bates

Two Bach Deconstructions, Part II: Immortal Bach, Knut Nystedt

The piece that I introduced to our friend last weekend is a favorite of mine. It's a much smaller piece, in length and in scope, than Pärt's Credo, but it's a brilliant concept.

I was first exposed to the music of the Norwegian composer Knut Nystedt (born 1915) at Cal State Fullerton; in the University Singers choir, we sang an a cappella piece of his called Be Not Afraid. After a powerful chordal introduction, the bottom three parts (alto, tenor and bass) settled into an almost pop-music-like "groove," a repeating pattern of chords with a dynamic rhythm, while the sopranos sang the melody over the top of it. I thought that was really cool, so I resolved to research the composer a little more. My choir director gave me another piece of his called O Crux, which is another terrific piece that I should post about sometime. And for Christmas that year, after searching far and wide for it, my mother got me the CD Nystedt: Sacred Choral Music, which includes recordings of both O Crux and the piece at hand: Immortal Bach.

Immortal Bach (1988) is modeled on Bach's chorale "Komm, süsser Tod" ("Come, Sweet Death"), and is a deconstruction of the piece for a cappella choir. The choir begins by singing the chorale through as it was written (or at least harmonized) by Bach--the original version, consisting of three phrases, each of which have a cadence, or a progression leading to a particular chord, at the end. (The piece is in C minor; the first phrase ends on an E-flat major chord [III], the second on a G major chord [V], and the last, of course, on C minor [i].) Then, the choir sings through each of the three phrases again. But this time, each part moves at a different slow pace through the phrase, so that all of the parts move independently of the others. The result is exquisite, as the parts combine in different ways, the dissonances of the piece are extended and new sonorities are created. At the end of each phrase, all the parts come to rest on the final chord (eventually), there is a pause, and the next phrase begins. It's incredibly simple, but incredibly beautiful as well.

I've seen two performances of the piece, both of which included a unique element. The first (by the John Alexander Singers of the Pacific Chorale) was performed in "surround sound," with the 24 singers arranged around the audience. I believe this is how the score dictates that it should be performed (I tried for a long time to find a copy of the score viewable online, because I'd like to see what it looks like, but my efforts were to no avail). It was a pretty cool effect, but I felt like I couldn't hear every part as well as I would have liked to. The second performance (by the Chamber Singers of Cal State Fullerton), directed by the same conductor who introduced me to Nystedt (Dr. Robert Istad), used motions to represent visually what was happening in the music. Each of the phrases had a corresponding motion (raising the arms, etc.) that each member of the choir acted out through the course of the phrase, so that at first all of the motions were done in sync. But in the subsequent phrases, each singer moved through the motion at the same rate they moved through the phrase, so you could see how all of the singers were at a different point in the music; but they all came together to the same position as they came together on the chord at the end of each phrase. It was a clever idea, and I enjoyed that performance a great deal.

It may sound cool when I describe it, but of course you really just have to listen to it. Click on the video below to hear a recording by the group Ensemble 96, conducted by Øystein Fevang. Gorgeous.

Two Bach Deconstructions, Part II: Immortal Bach, Knut Nystedt

Two Bach Deconstructions, Part I: Credo, Arvo Pärt

Happy Easter! He is risen--He is risen indeed!

My lovely wife and I were visiting a friend last weekend, and he introduced me to a piece that he'd been taken with recently. It was a modern "deconstruction" or reimagining of a Bach piece that was very well done. It just so happened that I had brought a CD for him to borrow, and it also contained a modern deconstruction of another Bach piece, so I played it for him and he enjoyed it quite a bit. And, of course, I thought it would make a great two-parter on TLB. So here's part one of two....

The piece our friend played for us was a piece for choir, orchestra and solo piano entitled Credo, by the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt (born 1935). Pärt is best known for a composition style known as "holy minimalism" or "sacred minimalism," which employs tonal chord structures with frequent repetition and an overall static (rather than dynamic and progressing) feeling. His particular brand of the style is designated as "tintinnabuli" (from the Latin tinnabulae, of bells) and is meant to sound like pealing, harmonius bells. Pärt has said that "Tintinnabuli is the mathematically exact connection from one line to another... tintinnabuli is the rule where the melody and the accompaniment is one"--in other words, the melody and accompanying voices move in block chords rather than having different rhythms. Most of Pärt's famous works, including his Berliner Messe and Fratres (my personal favorite of his works), are written in this style, which he adopted in the 1970s.

However (after that long aside), Credo was written before that period, in 1968, and shows marks of his earlier preference for neo-classical and twelve-tone (or serial) styles. It is based on Bach's first prelude from The Well-Tempered Clavier, a very simple piece in C major that repeats the same arpeggiated pattern while changing chords in each measure. (You can see a performance of that piece here; if you listen to the Pärt piece, I recommend listening to the Bach piece first.) Credo takes the piece and its chord progression, and then applies neo-classical, twelve-tone and collage techniques and makes it another piece entirely.

Credo begins with the choir singing and the orchestra playing long held notes--the same chords as the Bach prelude, but with no arpeggiation (in other words, instead of the chords being played as a series of individual notes, all the notes of the chord are sung at the same time). The first several measures are exactly the same progression and voicings of the Bach piece; but it gradually begins to stray from the original piece, getting farther and farther from the source material, and experiences a harrowing journey through a frenzied middle section that is loud, wild and twelve-tone (sounding much like something from Schoenberg or Prokofiev). It is a struggle, and a violent one at that, almost as if Pärt is wrestling with his own beliefs ("credo" is Latin for "I believe"), but also seems to symbolize the struggles between tonality and serialism, order and disorder. The piece almost seems to fall apart and disintegrate. But eventually the solo piano returns, playing the original prelude up several octaves, high above the fray; the dissonant orchestra attempts to drown it out, but tonality begins to triumph, and the choir returns softly but gains strength, and after a hymn-like return to the original prelude by the choir, orchestra and piano, the piano concludes the piece playing each C on the keyboard, from the lowest to the highest.

The piece was rather exhilarating, and is a brilliant "update" of sorts of the original Bach work. Pärt reinterprets Bach and turns his simple prelude into a huge piece that represents the struggles of both twentieth-century music and the human spirit. Definitely recommended!

Unfortunately, I couldn't find a free online recording of the piece to listen to; but it would be worth checking out on CD. If you'd like a more in-depth analysis of the piece, I found an excellent article you might want to check out as well, that gives a more detailed play-by-play of the piece and places it in the larger context of Pärt's career; you can find it here.

Two Bach Deconstructions, Part I: Credo, Arvo Pärt

Two Exciting Opportunities--My Record: 1-1

I wanted to give you all a brief update on the two exciting opportunities I wrote about two weeks ago, one involving a string quartet from Arizona interested in my piece P.S.Q. and the other involving starting a choir at my church.

Unfortunately, the leadership of the church wasn't interested in the choir concept I'd come up with and didn't think it fit with their vision and direction, so there went that idea. However, I've had much better success with Quartet Sabaku. My contact in the group told me that they read through the first movement (based on Maroon 5's song "Harder To Breathe") and loved it, but they were really busy and were hoping to finalize next season's repertoire in a few months. So that was a great start, if nothing concrete. But I got another email from her on Monday and she informed me that they were going to be using my piece for an educational workshop on April 17th. I'm not sure exactly what the workshop is about, but that was rather exciting in and of itself--and seems to up the chances of landing the piece in their next performing season. I'll keep you posted on further developments!

Two Exciting Opportunities--My Record: 1-1

"Haydn Go Seek"

I was reminded again by this article a few days ago that the bicentennial of Franz Josef Haydn's death is coming up this May--he died May 31st, 1809. (The article, written by Fred Sanders, appeared on Scriptorium Daily, the blog of Biola University's Torrey Honors Institute.) The best line from the article: "Start listening now so you’ll be ready for the big Haydn go seek party." Sanders mentions that Haydn's oratorio The Creation was the first piece of music to be studied as a text in the Torrey program and goes on to describe how the students study and analyze it. (My younger brother is a current Torrey student; I wonder if he's gotten to that point of the curriculum yet?)

The article got me thinking about how little of Haydn's music I know. Much of his work falls into the movement of Classical composition known as "Böoring" to modern listeners; but I decided that as a composer myself, I should at least make the acquaintance of some of his greater pieces.

So I shall set myself this goal: listen to three major Haydn works, at least twice apiece, during the month of April. One of them will be The Creation, since I was so inspired by Sanders' article. Now I set you, my loyal readers, this goal: suggest for me what the other two works should be--and/or recommend recordings of those or of The Creation that you particularly enjoy. I know that many of my readers may not have a lot of experience in Haydn's music; but maybe you can do some research on your own! So, dear readers, bring on your suggestions, and I'll write about 'em here in a later post!

"Haydn Go Seek"

Two Exciting Opportunities

I've come across two exciting opportunities for myself and my music over the last two days. The first came in the form of an email from a woman named Katie Shields, who is the violist in Quartet Sabaku, a string quartet based in Arizona. Apparently she saw my profile on the American Composers Forum website and then either did a Google search on my name or followed the link on the profile to my website. She said in the email that she loved my YouTube video (a fun project I did for Campus Crusade in 2004, which you can see here), and asked to hear or see any music I might have for string quartet, string trio or violin/viola solo. I emailed her back last night and gave her the score to P.S.Q., a string quartet I wrote at Cal State Fullerton that uses atonal pitch material but rhythms, articulations and forms from pop music to transform the string quartet into an avant-garde rock band. It's never been performed (never well, at least), and I'm excited about the opportunity to possibly get it performed and get connected with an ensemble. And it's even cooler that the ensemble actually sought me out on its own.

The second exciting opportunity has been brewing in my mind for some time, but was set into motion today. I met for lunch this afternoon with the worship director at Redeemer Presbyterian Church, the church where my lovely wife and I are members, to discuss the possibility of putting a choir together that I would lead. Redeemer is a church that places a great deal of emphasis on culture and art, and I think a choir would fit right in and add another level of depth to an already profound liturgy. When I was at Cal State Fullerton, I took two choral conducting classes with Rob Istad, and they were terrific; I picked it up quickly, though it was also challenging, and it was a heck of a lot of fun. So, in addition to enhancing the worship experience at Redeemer, it would also be a great opportunity for me to try my hand at conducting and leading a choral ensemble. We would probably start with just a hymn, singing it in four-part harmony (which sounds cool even if it's just what's written on the page), and if that worked well we might move on to more interesting choral repertoire. Eventually it might even become an ensemble I could compose for. I'm really stoked on the idea; the worship director will be talking to the pastors and the Session and presenting it to them, and if they give the go-ahead we'll get started! I'll keep you all posted....

Two Exciting Opportunities

Nothing New Under The Sun

My lovely wife was in the kitchen the other day, and she hummed a short bit of a tune. I happened to be nearby, and, as I often do, asked her what it was she was humming-- it sounded to me like "It Came Upon A Midnight Clear" (the Christmas carol). She hesitated, so I next asked if it was from a song from Phantom Of The Opera--I can't remember what song it's from, but there was a part of a song (a bridge, I think) that sounded the same as the opening line of the carol. She said no, it was neither one of those; she'd actually just been humming without having any particular song in mind. We also determined that the folk song "My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean" also starts with the same melody line. So she was either humming something original, or three different songs all at the same time.

"What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun. Is there a thing of which it is said, 'See, this is new'? It has been already in the ages before us." Ecclesiastes 1:9-11

Nothing New Under The Sun

Listen: Life With Classical Music

To my surprise, I received in the mail a few days ago the inaugural volume of the print magazine Listen: Life With Classical Music. I'd never heard of it before (I suppose since it was the first issue), and I couldn't figure out how I got on the distribution list for it. The website, which I linked above, was no help, only offering an online subscription and a few email addresses. After a quick Google search, I discovered that it was launched by ArkivMusic.com, America's leading online retailer of classical music CDs and DVDs, as a lifestyle magazine for classical music fans. A BusinessWire.com article has the story:

"ArkivMusic.com Launches New Venture: LISTEN: Life with Classical Music"

Another few results from Google revealed that complimentary magazines were sent to people who had purchased something (in some cases, only one something, once) from ArkivMusic. I know I've made at least one purchase from Arkiv (as chronicled in this post), so I guess that must have been what landed me on the list to receive the magazine.

I read the first couple of articles today at lunch, and was a bit disappointed. If I'm going to get a magazine, I don't particularly want it to have super-long and very indepth articles, because I'll never get around to reading it all; but these articles were too short and had no depth. Almost all of the ads are for recordings that you can buy on Arkiv, too, so as one Google commenter noted, "It seems like a once over lightly publication. The features didn't get very deep into their subjects - mostly puff promo stuff. I suspected it was put out by Archivmusic based on the number of promos in the magazine." I'll probably read the rest of the issue; but if it doesn't get any better, I won't be subscribing.

Listen: Life With Classical Music

Gustavo Dudamel and the Teresa Carreño Youth Orchestra

I was tipped off last month to this video by @foxonthedocks, a Londoner on Twitter who tweets "about classical music recordings, broadcasts and performance. And other stuff." It's a video on TED.com, a site that I've heard about but successfully avoided till now. Foxonthedocks actually posted a link to the video the day of my wedding, February 22nd, but I just got around to watching it today. The video is a performance by the Teresa Carreño Youth Orchestra of Venezuela. The site explains that the orchestra "is the national high school age youth orchestra of El Sistema, Venezuela's groundbreaking, life-changing musical education program. To put this ensemble's musicianship in context, the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela is the next step for many of these young musicians. That orchestra, containing musicians from 18 to 28 years old, has toured the world with conductor Gustavo Dudamel and has made a number of recordings on Deutsche Grammophon. The Teresa Carreño Youth Orchestra is the next level below, and will succeed the Simón Bolívar." The T.C.Y.O. is conducted by Gustavo Dudamel, a hotshot young conductor (himself a product of El Sistema) who was named recently as Esa-Pekka Salonen's successor as the music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. Although his name is not quite as cool as Esa-Pekka's (come on, though, how could it be?), he does have the hair to be a great conductor, and even though he's only 28 he's probably the world's hottest conductor right now.

In the video Dudamel conducts the T.C.Y.O. in Shostakovich's Symphony No. 10, 2nd movement, and Arturo Márquez' Danzón No. 2, with a brief speech in between. The video is 17 minutes long in its entirety, but the Shostakovich is contained within the first five minutes if you don't have that much time.



If he can make a group of high school students, even one as great as this, sound this good, what do you think he could do with the LA Phil?

Gustavo Dudamel and the Teresa Carreño Youth Orchestra

I'm Back!

Greetings, loyal readers--I have returned! My lovely wife (woohoo!) and I got back from an amazing honeymoon at the Doubletree Resort in Puntarenas, Costa Rica, on Sunday; we had Monday and Tuesday off of work and were able to open our wedding gifts and cards, buy a few gifts we hadn't received and generally settle in to our new apartment in Costa Mesa (sounds similar, but is actually quite different). I have yet to import and organize all the pictures we took, but once I do I'll let you know, for anyone who's interested in seeing them.

Not much to post on at this point. My wife and I signed up on Monday for Netflix, an online movie rental service, so you can expect to start seeing a few more score reviews here at TLB. They may end up as brief 140-character reviews on Twitter, too, though, so be sure you're following me there as well. Our first rental, since I was reading Shakespeare's play Hamlet on our honeymoon, is Laurence Olivier's Hamlet from 1948. The score is by William Walton, an English composer who wrote a really cool oratorio I sang at Cal State Fullerton entitled Belshazzar's Feast. I've seen this film version of Hamlet once before, but I don't remember much about the score. Stay tuned to Twitter later tonight....

I feel as if I'm in danger of making TLB into a Coldplay fan site, since I post about them so frequently; but at the risk of seeming so, I have one more note to make before I sign off for now (although I still do want to do a week's worth of posts on Prospekt's March sometime soon as well). It appears that Coldplay has posted a complete discography on their website, including 60-second audio clips of every song and (most exciting for me) band-approved lyrics. If you're interested, you can check it out here.

Farewell for tonight--it's good to be back; look for some new posts coming up soon!

I'm Back!

Synesthesia: Seeing Sound

I found a news link on CNN.com last week about synesthesia, a mental disorder that mixes sensory experiences. The most common form and the easiest to diagnose is when someone hears music or sounds and simultaneously sees colors. The article's opening paragraph says this: "When Julian Asher listens to an orchestra, he doesn't just hear music; he also sees it. The sounds of a violin make him see a rich burgundy color, shiny and fluid like a red wine, while a cello's music flows like honey in a golden yellow hue."

"Seeing color in sounds has genetic link"

Vladimir Nabokov, the author of "Lolita," famously had this condition, which the study in the article has linked to genetics. There have also been a number of famous composers who had the disorder, notably Franz Lizst, Olivier Messiaen, György Ligeti, and (particularly) Alexander Scriabin. The linked Wikipedia article sheds doubt on the fact that Scriabin actually had the disorder, although he is known for associating colors with notes and keys. In his work Prometheus: The Poem Of Fire, composed in 1910, he actually wrote a part for a "color organ" which projected colors during the performance.

Since I was young, I've associated colors with keys as well (although I certainly don't have synesthesia), but my associations are completely different from Scriabin's. The Wikipedia article mentions a conversation between Scriabin and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov: "Both maintained that the key of D major was golden-brown; but Scriabin linked E-flat major with red-purple, while Rimsky-Korsakov favored blue." These all sound foreign to my color sense. This is how I've always thought:

C major: yellow (the color of light)
D major and D minor: deep blue
E-flat major: orange
E major and E minor: orange
F major: green
G major: light blue
A-flat major: red
A major and A minor: red

(Obviously it's an incomplete list. I've never taken the time or had the inclination to sit down and work out a system, the way Scriabin did; these are just the particular keys that have always struck me in particular ways.)

Thus you may see the connection in the bridal processional I wrote for my wedding, where C major represented purity and innocence and A major represented passion.

It's certainly an interesting topic. Any readers out there with synesthesia that would care to weigh in?

Synesthesia: Seeing Sound

Wedding Music, Part 4: All The Music

It's here--the last week leading up to the wedding! I've been rather busy (as you might imagine) so I haven't had much time to post. But I'm going to try to write a few entries over the next few days and then schedule them through the next week and a half, so even while I'm away on my honeymoon you can still get your TLB fix.

I thought that I'd post today, for anyone who's interested, the overview of all the music I've planned for the wedding. The first three wedding music posts can be found at the following links: Wedding Music, Part 1, Wedding Music, Part 2, and Wedding Music, Part 3: Recessional.

For the ceremony, a member of our church community group agreed to play the piano for us--she has a master's degree in performance so we were excited to bring her on board.

For the prelude, she'll be playing a variety of classical music: some Bach, a little Debussy, etc.

There will be two hymns that the congregation will sing during the ceremony: "Be Thou My Vision" (careful; if you open that page a really crappy MIDI version of the hymn will start playing automatically) and a modern hymn, "In Christ Alone" (music starts automatically there too, but at least it's a decent recording).

Then there's the music I wrote, in three parts:

The processional: "Amazing Grace." This is the song that all the bridesmaids and groomsmen will "process" to as they walk down the aisle. I wrote a flowing sixteenth-note pattern in D major (pretty cool, if I do say so myself) for the left hand and set a slightly altered version of the melody "Amazing Grace" over it. Then after a full verse of "Amazing Grace," the left hand changes to portamento (i.e. slightly detached) single notes while the right hand plays an altered version of "In Christ Alone"--the two songs actually make for a pretty seamless medley, because they're in the same meter (3/4) and have similar rhythmic patterns. After the last line of "Amazing Grace" returns to cap things off, there are four bars of anticipation while the piano plays around softly with a G major chord (the IV in D) and C-sharps, which create the feeling that something else has to come next. Then comes a hanging G major-add6-add7-add9 chord, the back doors of the church open to reveal the lovely bride, and the next piece begins:

The bridal processional: "Passion And Purity." (See the Wedding Music, Part 2 post for details on this piece's history.) The intro and outro of this piece are based loosely on the theme from the second movement of Henryk Górecki's Symphony No. 3, Op. 36, a piece that has a pretty fascinating history of its own. (If you happen to click on the audio sample from the Wikipedia article, please be advised that it does not contain the theme that my piece is based on.) It's played in a simple, innocent-sounding setting in C major symbolizing purity. The main body of the piece is a setting of a simple melody I wrote a long, long time ago--the only musical connection in the wedding to anything else I've written. It begins in C major, but then transitions up to a more brilliant setting in A major (symbolizing, for me at least, passion), and includes a subtle quote of Bach's piece "Jesu, Joy Of Man's Desiring," which is often used as a bridal processional itself. The conclusion of the piece, returning to the Górecki theme, remains in A major--suggesting a new kind of purity in the context of marriage.

The recessional: "With Joy." (See the Wedding Music, Part 3: Recessional post for details on this piece's history.) This piece was the most fun to write and is the rocking piece in the set. It is also in A major, continuing the idea of passion--and what a passionate piece it is. It starts with a high triplet pattern I stole from a Michael Card song, "The Voice of the Child" (click on the song's title under "Song Clip" to listen to it--the triplet pattern is at the beginning; if that link doesn't work, click here and click the play button next to track 7). The pattern builds as the pastor says "I now present to you, for the first time, Mr. and Mrs. AJ Harbison!" at which point I will give our pianist two quick conducting cue beats. On the downbeat, the triplet pattern shifts into overdrive (in sixteenths instead of triplets), and the left hand crashes down into low octaves à la "Baba O'Riley" as explained in the linked wedding music post above. It's gonna be awesome. The middle section calms down a bit--I think it's at that point that the pastor will invite everyone over to the reception--and is I think the only passage in all three pieces that is newly-written and not referencing something else. It's mostly chordal and follows simple progressions built around the IV, V and vi chords. Then the high pattern/"Baba O'Riley" theme returns, in a slightly modified form that eventually dissipates up into the original triplet pattern, quiet and way up high. There's a faint echo of the theme from "Passion And Purity"--tyin' it all together--and then it ends on a high held A, and a low A octave as quiet as possible. I'm telling you, it's gonna rock.

(I've joked to Eleanor that I could never publish the wedding suite, if I ever wanted to--there's way too much plagiarism in it. I'd bankrupt us paying all the licensing fees. But at least it'll be awesome on the day itself!)

Then comes the reception! We decided to hire Bonne Musique Zydeco to be our live band, and we can't wait to dance the night away with them. My lovely bride and I will have our first dance to Derek Webb's song "Better Than Wine," she will dance with her father to "Up Around The Bend" by Creedence Clearwater Revival, and I'll dance with my mother to "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)" James Taylor-style. All with dashes of zydeco thrown in to spice things up. We'll eat, drink, dance and party; and then my bride and I will make our getaway and ride off into the sunset.

Wedding Music, Part 4: All The Music

"As Slow As Possible," John Cage

While looking at some websites about John Cage for my last post, I came across this interesting one. In addition to his famous controversial pieces like 4'33", he apparently also wrote a piece called "As Slow As Possible." One current performance, which began in 2001, is scheduled to finish (after being performed very quickly) in 2640, a mere 639 years in duration. Allegedly more than 100 people showed up two and a half years ago to hear the chord in the piece change. The article is from May 2006, but I assume that the performance is still going on.

"John Cage's Long Music Composition in Germany Changes a Note"

It's a shame that avant-garde music like this doesn't make much money. Anyone with a reasonable amount of intelligence could be a millionaire!

"As Slow As Possible," John Cage

Finger-Syncing

Thanks to my company being so cool, I had the chance to watch part of the inauguration ceremony on Tuesday morning of this week. They set up the big-screen TV in the conference room to stream the video feed; unfortunately it kept hiccuping, the audio and video were out of sync, etc. which was pretty annoying. But I enjoyed the chance to see it regardless.

As you probably know, famed film composer John Williams composed a piece specifically for the inauguration entitled Air and Simple Gifts, based on the famous Appalachian folk melody, and it was performed live by cellist Yo-Yo Ma, violinist Itzhak Perlman, pianist Gabriella Montero and clarinetist Anthony McGill. My first thought upon seeing the performers was "They can't really be playing, it's way too cold for the instruments to stay in tune!"

You know, turns out I was right. I saw an article on MSN today making that same point. The musicians were in fact performing live, so the people who were close enough to them could hear them playing; but the instruments were not amplified and the music that was broadcast over the speakers at the event and to the millions watching on TV (myself included) had been recorded several days before.

That's a reasonable decision--really the only reasonable one, if you think about it. The temperature was about 30 degrees, as the article points out, too cold for any of the instruments to play in tune but especially "play[ing] havoc" on the piano. This happens pretty frequently with classical performances in very cold environments, and even the great tenor Luciano Pavarotti famously lip-synced his final performance. I fully support the decision of the musicians at the inauguration, as I imagine any reasonable person who understands the factors involved would. But I find it amusing that the press wants to make a point of revealing this fact. The article can be found at the link below.

"Their performance was live — but music wasn't"

When I wrote the first draft of this post, I replaced my original text "I find it amusing that the press wants to make it a big deal" with the text of my penultimate sentence above, thinking the word choice of the former was too strong. But several hours later, the article made it to a more prominent place on MSN's front page and also added a reader poll, entitled "Vote: Bad Choice?" So now I return to my original thought. It's ridiculous that the press is making such a big deal out of it. The actual question on the poll is practically incriminating: "Was it wrong to 'fake' music at the presidential inauguration?" Fortunately, 68.2% of the people who voted in the poll voted no. But some of the responses (you can comment as well as vote in the poll) are rather amusing in themselves; one person who voted yes commented "Just more smoke & mirrors from the obamamite camp." The third option in the poll (besides "yes, it was wrong to fool the masses" and "no, who cares, it sounded good") is "Maybe. If this is how the administration starts out ...", and one of the readers who voted that option also commented "i'm not at all surprise if it was recorded, everything sorrounding the obama campain has been stained with deceitfulness" [sic]. As if Obama or his "obamamite camp" or "campain" had anything to do with the performance (whatever the heck they are). Doesn't anyone have any common sense anymore?

Finger-Syncing

Slumdog Millionaire Soundtrack, A.R. Rahman

Last week my lovely fiancée and I decided to take a break from wedding planning and go out on an old-fashioned date to dinner and a movie. The movie we saw was Slumdog Millionaire, a film about an 18 year-old orphan named Jamal from the slums of Mumbai who becomes a contestant on India's version of "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" and is poised to win the grand prize of 20 million rupees. But when the show breaks for the night, he is arrested and interrogated by a police inspector who doesn't believe a "slumdog" could know so much. Jamal tells the inspector his life story, each new stage in his tale revealing how he knew the answer to one of the questions.

Eleanor and I both enjoyed the film very much. It was a very well-made movie, with terrific cinematography, good writing and good acting--a fun ride. I remarked to her that the story was filled with contrasts pitted against each other: the rich gang lords contrasted with the orphans in the slums; the superficiality and shallowness of the game show contrasted with the gritty, authentic picture of life on the streets; the old slums and trash heaps in Mumbai contrasted with seemingly endless new construction. And this contrast of old and new came out in the music quite a bit, too. The score was written by A.R. Rahman, a composer who apparently has done a lot of Indian movies. I noticed that a lot of the music utilized modern electronics and beats, but featured traditional Indian instruments.

You can hear some samples on the Amazon product page for the soundtrack. "O... Saya," a collaboration between the composer and artist M.I.A., features a computer-altered voice singing a traditional-sounding melody above fast percussion. An uncredited editorial review on the Amazon page declares the song "a rumbling hybrid of Bollywood and hip-hop." The soundtrack also juxtaposes more ethnic music like "Ringa Ringa" (track number six) with "Latika's Theme" (track number eight), an atmospheric treatment of a theme that could fit in a variety of movies and becomes a pop song in "Dreams On Fire," the penultimate track. And the third track, "Mausam & Escape," sounds perhaps like the Indian version of "Through The Fire And Flames."

The Amazon page also quotes Kurt Loder of MTV.com as saying this: "The propulsive score, by Bollywood soundtrack auteur A. R. Rahman, is hip-hop fusion of a very up-to-date kind." I agree. Artistically, I appreciated how the fusion in the music reflected the fusion in the movie; and as a listener I enjoyed the music for adding another dimension to a very cool film.

Slumdog Millionaire Soundtrack, A.R. Rahman

Handbell Quartets For Christmas, Paul Ellsworth

I've written before about the Christian Fellowship of Art Music Composers that I belong to, and their monthly listening pages. For their Christmas edition this year, the featured works were by a young composer named Paul Ellsworth (www.ellsworthcreations.com): two Christmas songs for handbell quartet. I always enjoy handbell music, so I headed over to the YouTube videos linked on the listening page and checked them out. I was pleasantly surprised--they really are for handbell quartet, meaning there are only four people, but they do things with handbells I've never seen at speeds I've never imagined. Most people, I think, enjoy handbell music, but it's worth checking out these videos just to see the performers and all the cool stuff they do. Not least of their accomplishments is that these long and complicated arrangements are all memorized--not that they'd have time to look at music anyway. The group is called Five Octave Frenzy, and they're part of the music department at The Master's College. The first video is five and a half minutes long, the second is five and a quarter. The performers from left to right are Amanda Madrid, Leslie Ann Tulloch, Hannah Cooper, and the composer himself, Paul Ellsworth.

"Sing We Now A'Wassailing":

"Three Kings and Three Ships":



Merry Christmas from all of us (i.e. me) here at The Listening Blog!

Handbell Quartets For Christmas, Paul Ellsworth

Flutey And The Beast Is Complete!

I wrote back in July about Flutey and the Beast, a tuba and flute duet I was writing for my friend Jeff. After much procrastinating on my part, the piece is finally complete! The only way I have to share it with you is the MIDI realization that Sibelius, my music notation program, provides; it doesn't sound good, and it hiccups a bit (anything that sounds like a performing mistake is a hiccup), but you'll get the idea. Before you listen to the piece, here are the "performance directions" I included in the score (there's also a description of the piece in the post linked above):

This piece is a dramatic work, telling a “beauty and the beast”
story, and it should be performed in a very expressive and dramatic
fashion. The tuba plays the beast, who states his gruff theme after
the introduction in the pickup to measure 8. The short theme in the
tuba in measures 14 through 16 represents the beast’s longing to
be, well, not so beastly. The flute plays the beauty and is
continually interrupted and rebuffed by the beast, until the full
statement of her theme in measures 29 through 35. The beast is
slowly but surely won over by the beauty, until he plays her theme
beginning in measure 55 and then plays a bass line supporting her
final triumphant statement. The introduction returns in a slightly
modified version as the conclusion.

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Flutey And The Beast Is Complete!

"Pearls Before Breakfast": The Appreciation (Or Not) Of Beauty

I was going through some old emails today, and I came across this Washington Post article that my friend Stephen emailed to me May 3rd, 2007:

"Pearls Before Breakfast: Can one of the nation's great musicians cut through the fog of a D.C. rush hour?"

I don't think I ever actually read the whole article until today. It's very long--about 18 Microsoft Word pages--but it's really, really good. It's an experiment that the Post conducted: having Joshua Bell, one of the world's greatest violinists, play in a busy Washington D.C. Metro station to see if anyone stops to listen:

"No one knew it, but the fiddler standing against a bare wall outside the Metro in an indoor arcade at the top of the escalators was one of the finest classical musicians in the world, playing some of the most elegant music ever written on one of the most valuable violins ever made. His performance was arranged by The Washington Post as an experiment in context, perception and priorities -- as well as an unblinking assessment of public taste: In a banal setting at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?"

In addition to reporting on what happened and interviewing Bell and many of the passersby, the article reflects on the philosophy of beauty, comments on the intricacies of violin-making, and describes the pieces that Bell played. It's very well-written, dramatic and poetic as well as journalistic, and it includes several video clips showing some of the people who stopped to listen and toss change (and many who didn't). I would recommend reading the whole article, even if it takes a few sittings. It's an interesting commentary on our culture, and an intriguing take on the human perception of beauty.

"Pearls Before Breakfast": The Appreciation (Or Not) Of Beauty