Eileen surprised me
and got me a man bag
for valentines day.

Cool.

I went traditional
for her and got
her roses.

Eileen pointed out
that I hardly ever
strap my fanny pack
around me, just
carry it. I immediately
switched all my
stuff to the man bag.
It is much
nicer than
my fanny pack.

Still haven’t gotten paid from Holland High School. I guess that’s just a write-off.

I’m sitting in my office at GVSU . Today’s lecture went pretty well I thought. I did two complete symphony movements in class with diagrams about their form. It’s a long about now I start to wonder about the content of this course.

I like Haydn and Mozart (not to mention Bach, Handel and Vivaldi). But what do they really have to say to my students?

My word for today was “anachronism.” heh.

I am teaching about the Sonata Allegro form as used by Mozart and Haydn. I remember resisting listening to this kind of music with this kind of roadmap in mind. A teacher at WSU once asked a class of music majors if they were listening for form when they listened to music. We all said no. He was shocked. He told us we should be.

But I still wonder why it’s necessary for enjoyment. If I listen for form, I am not in enjoyment mode but in analytic mode. Maybe that’s what he meant. As students we should listen analytically. I guess that makes sense.

I certainly enjoy analysis. I just differentiate between that and the way I enjoy the music itself.

I think Copland was on to something by asking the question about what level we are listening to music on.

I tend to listen to music for meaning not form pe se. The meaning often comes from a charming turn to the melody or chords or the sheer sound (Or admittedly the lyrics)
When looking at the ocean or a storm or a mountain and i become filled with awe and pleasure, it is not necessary for me to think analytically. In fact it can obstruct my perception and completely change the experience.

If Zappa was still alive I could see him turning into an inveterate blogger. He spent so much of his life trying to get his music and ideas a public platform. Surely he would support the Internet’s ability to allow anyone to talk to another person online or listen to their music or ideas…..

12:23 PM

Dear Diary,

I have been thinking a lot about the surface nature of my life experience. I’m reading American Mythologies by Blonsky.

I am fascinated the way we conduct our public discussions in such false terms. False intimacy of the whispered voice on the radio. False appearance of the tv announcer informing you (he or she is not….. they are entertaining you or trying to).

Blonsky and his ilk (postmodernists whatever) realize that the current intellectual discussion often occurs in a rootless fashion. Our talk to each other is torn away from the context of what has happened before. We search for referents in our recent experience. I can talk about Ted Koppel. You might know him (Blonsky interviewed him for the book I’m reading…. it’s in a later chapter, but you can already tell that Koppel got his goat: He quotes Koppel early on as saying the trick is to not “be on the record. Be an empty vessel.” Perfect.). But would you recognize other people in my intellectual world: Proust, Kafka, Stein, Couperin. Maybe you know the names. But I find that usually I have to fill in so much information about the ideas of these people that what people tend to hear is disaffecting intensity. That Jenkins. He’s a pretentious asshole who takes himself way too seriously and talks about boring boring stuff.

So the opposite of being entertained is being bored.

Entertainment is getting a bad rap these days I think. At least I’m working on my own honesty about it. Usually if I enjoy something (a piece of music or poem or book or piece of art), it’s basically entertaining me. I’m very interested in stuff that has no purpose other than it’s own being.
Once I detect that the main thing the composer, author, recording company, college prof is trying to do is sell me on something, I get less interested. A lot less interested.

Nice little article in yesterday’s New York Times Mag: “Here, There, and Everywhere” by Walter Kirn (get the title reference? Beatles song?)…. His point is that advertisers seem to shoot themselves in the foot by proliferating to a ridculous extent. He wonders who they think he is. I wonder that sometimes. I figure that politicians and businessmen/women are so caught up in their own silliness that it fails to occur to them that the way they see the world is different from so many people. At least different from me (and Kirn, I guess).

Boring (sic) quote from Blonsky:

Depth is a category that pretends to penetrate the surface and find gravity, marshes, passions, history, conflict, soul, compartments, origins, hidden motives, density, evil, sin, and abysmal precipes…..

Surface …. is choice, speed, irreversible, aleatory, euphoric, flighty, cool, rootless, visual, sentimental, comfortable, detachable, fun, well-being, changeable, and a historical. Let the realm of the mask, for the moment, assert itself.

So I’m mired in both.

People were a bit out of control today at church. Afterward Eileen and I went to Panera. Came home and listened to this album on Napster:

Lovely pieces. It has a couple of the ones that Bach transcribed (one of the organ transcriptions and one for 3 harpsichords and orch).

Reading the New York Times and relaxing. This Cd is playing right now:

I don’t know
Lully
as well as
some French
composers.
But this is a
very nice
recording.

Both of
these
recordings
involve
Jordi Saval

Watched some very interesting video of my
hero, Frank Zappa on Youtube yesterday.
Most of the ones I watched were made
during the last part of his life (He died
in 1993 of prostate cancer). He seems
relaxed and confident.

In one tape of “some morning talk show,”
he mentions that he hasn’t listened to any
Philip Glass, but that he doesn’t like “Minimalism.”

When pressed, he named Stravinsky, Bartok and Webern as the sort of classical composers he likes.

This morning I was laying in bed thinking about how I was going to pull off church. I got up and wrote flute and violin   for the prelude and second communion hymn. Then I turned on the computer and got an email from the violinist. Her grandmother died and she won’t be at church tomorrow.

Obviously I can’t blame her for all that. I think I will print up the instrumental parts anyway just for the heck of it.

In the YouTube video, Zappa is interviewed in his home. At one point he sits in front of his famous machine that includes a musical keyboard and a computer. When asked if using this kind of equipment changes the music in a bad way, Zappa bitterly replies that it takes the most unreliable part of the music out, the musicians. He must have been burned quite a bit in his life. He also repeated his advice from his book about parenting: “keep your kids as far away from religion as possible.” He has a point there, even though the church has been “berry berry good to me.”

I know buy diazepam 2mg online uk that I am lucky to just be slightly inconvenienced (if at all really) when a violinist can’t show up because her grandmother died. Of course, Zappa was trying to make a living with his admittedly eccentric approach to the music industry. I have to admire his tenacity and drive as well as his music.

I do wonder what he would have thought of the internet proliferation. He was especially bitter about what music was getting to the public in his interview with Larry King. He was adamant that people should be able to listen to whatever music they want to listen to (whether he found that music worthwhile or not). But he also pointed out that it was difficult for an aspiring musician to get his/her music heard. Not so right now. Plus recording technology is so accessible and inexpensive (compared to what it was throughout most of Zappa’s life).

I like to think Zappa would have exercised his big brain and realized that throwing open his catalogue to the file exchange madness for free would increase his net worth as well as his ability to communicate with his music.

Right now, his living descendents have taken the approach that Zappa’s music is their legacy and should not even be performed (much less listened to) without them making a buck on it or giving permission. Too bad, but predictable I guess. I don’t blame them for wanting to honor Zappa’s life. I just wish they were actually more like him: brilliant, outrageous and insightful.

Not gonna happen.

A Girl Like Me

Thanks to Mark for recommending this one….

I have been thinking about doing some writing. I miss it. Songs still come at me. I need to pay more attention to them and write them down. I discovered a while back that the chords to the verse of my song, “So Many People,” are completely ripped off from “Miss Ohio” by Gillian Welch. I play that song and had the mood of the chords in mind when I wrote “So Many People.” I did not realize I had just duplicated the simple progession that Welch uses. Bah. Yesterday I sat down and easily wrote a new tune (not sure I could remember it today). College makes my mind blurry. I have been thinking about not teaching in the fall if they ask me to. I do enjoy teaching, but so much of what I do involves teaching and I am missing the writing a bit.

Also I believe in my heart that the schools in the US (and probably in other countries as well) do as much harm as good to people trying to learn. The college I am teaching at is no exception. So I already have misgivings about taking money from people who see life (and music and art and learning) so differently than I do. Then when they’re kind of creepy (or at least thoughtless) to me it lowers my motivation.

I sometimes wonder why I keep on writing songs. I guess I enjoy it. Eileen seems to like them sometimes. I don’t think I have much commercial viability. At least I hope not. I like East River Pipe. Apparently it’s just one guy: F.M. Cornog is what it says on the band’s website. The website is woefully out of date. But I like this idea. Taking a name (like Iron and Wine) instead of a stage name. Maybe I should do that. Hah. Anyway I’m not sure Cornog has all that much potential to be a musical “commodification” himself. That’s probably part of what I like about him. He’s kind of rough and simple in his music. I like that a lot.

4:02 PM

I just learned “What does T.S. Eliot know about you?”

I had a good rehearsal with the flute player. I suggested that she not push her double-tongueing at one point and just play it the normal speed that she is able to. She tried it and played the passage in Poulenc very clearly. I could see that she was surprised that easing off like that could produce such a result. She said to me that she wished her teacher had told her that earlier.

Eileen’s at work.

I corrected quizzes. The class did much better this time. I had one person not show up. Maybe he’s going to drop. I hope so. Or at least he has a good excuse and I can give him a make-up.

I listened to East River Pipe (“What does T.S. Eliot know about you?…. All those months are equally cruel….) and cleaned house.

I was preparing for my solo and ensemble soloists.

One of them has come and gone. He plays violin. I enjoy his approach to what he is doing. Very engaged and convincing player. Ninth grade. Playing a concerto which seems to be written specifically for a young violinist playing in the first and second position.

The flute player arrives in about twenty minutes. She is playing Polence. I find this accompaniment the most challenging of the three I am playing.

And there is a cellist playing a Haydn cello sonata.

As I practice, I often am reminded of things that teachers have said to me. One teacher in particular seems to be hanging around and that’s Ray Ferguson.

Ray died a few years back. Before he did I had a couple of chances to thank him for all his help as a teacher.

When I sit and play Bach or Couperin I often think of comments Ray made about them. Particularly about certain pieces on the organ or harpsichord. Ray played tons of Couperin himself. He was aware that many of his colleagues and even some of his listeners felt the music was a bit light (he quoted a man at his church who called it the boop di boopety music). He seemed pretty unperturbed by this. He managed to get his church to purchase a very nice harpsichord on which he performed (I think he even allowed me to use it in my senior recital…. I know I played a french double which means a two manual harpsichord in the French style on my Senior recital).

Conversations with dead teachers and composers seem more and more important to me these days. I have very few colleagues and friends with which to discuss music, art and ideas. So I talk to the ghosts around me, teachers and composers.

Couperin is so interesting because he had that combination of gentility and rigorous intellect that typifies much French intellectualism. On the one hand his pieces do seem light as air with fanciful titles. On the other hand, his compositional technique is there below the surface. So that when you start to scratch around as to why a piece is working so well, you are often rewarded with very clear counterpoint and motivic relationships. This complexity I more often associate with Bach’s finer works. But then I remember how fond Bach was of Couperin.

In my imagination, these two men stand tall. For me, they both expand the notion of what it means to be human. Couperin, arcanely polite and mannered, modest but fiercely and quietly talented; Bach, practical, down-to-earth and in the grips of his own obsessional technique and skill as a performer and composer.

Somewhere in the foreground of my thoughts stands Ray. He had a bit of the quality of those other two men. He tended to lead with his skills and abilities as a teacher. But he also tended to be extremely civil with even the most recalcitrant student or teacher. And he did have the fierce passion underneath the surface.

Once when he had hired me to substitute as a Messiah harpsichordist for him. He asked me to bring my Messiah score to the next harpsichord lesson to give me some pointers. During the course of the lesson he grimly told me that he had recommended me and that I was to prepare thoroughly enough to show up and “shine.” It was a challenge and a compliment at the same time. Good teaching. And as poor starving student with a fam, it was extremely helpful to make a little money.

I’ve been listening to East River Pipe
quite a bit lately….

example

Shut Up and Row

Oh lord, you got the megatons
you’re hatching men right round with guns
the money flows
the girls are young
yr slaves roll fast into the sun
and you say:
shut up and row you stupid fucks
shut up and row
row
.row
..row
…row
….row

I read this sentence today:

The essence of a nation is to say that the people on the other side of the fence are no good.

Marshall Blonsky in “American Mythologies”

Eileen taught her reading group kids at the library to count to five in Chinese…. Ages 3-5….. heh

Teaching was grueling yesterday, but I felt like I did a good job under the circumstances. Class remains quiet (intimidated?) but they seem pretty connected throughout the lecture.

I feel bad that I am reduced to lecturing but covered an awful lot of material yesterday. I was proud that I had posted a chart of information for my class online. They seemed pretty unimpressed.

Continued reading in “Children of the Alley” yesterday.

Mahfouz
tells a
good
story.

It covers
several
generations
living in
an alley
at the
edge of
a desert
and just
outside
the gate of
the lavish
home of
the founder
of the alley.

Good stuff.

Still learning about the whole teaching thing.

This morning, I decided to put some charts on BlackBoard (this is the site where students can see their grade and other info I put up). I can project these charts in the room.

As I was doing the first one, I realized how helpful the information will be to students who want to organize their thinking.

So I did a compartive chart of stylistic characteristics between Baroque music and Classical music. I will use the chart today to present the material. Then make the chart available to students online.

This is especially important to me right now because I am trying to figure out how to present material and test it in a coherent and unconfusing manner.

Due to meeting two times a week, instead of three, I have to quiz material that has been presented in the previous week. This means students receive new material that will not be on the very next quiz. I can see how that would be confusing when you are just learning.

I don’t see how to avoid it with my present schedule of quizzes and only meeting two times a week.

If I (God forbid) teach another semester and have to teach twice a week I may re-evaluate and come up with a better system.

But I do think that giving the students a bit more study aids via Blackboard is very warranted under these circumstances.

Hey…. Sarah and I were poking around trying to figure out plugins and how to post a Youtube video on our WordPress sites. I’m pretty proud of myself of gettting the dang video on there. Yes I would like it to fit my site better…. but what the heck.

Eileen and Steve in China?

Thanks to Sarah for showing me this….

His name is Ted Atkatz. He quit the Chicago Symphony to play in his own Indie Band. Thanks to Mike M. for this link. Hmmmm. I wonder why he sent this one to me. Heh.

So I went to the doctor on Monday. The nurse flushed my right ear (eeyoooo I know, but a good thing). Since then I can tell that I have some kind of cold thing in this ear.

My doctor said my ear drum was “red.” It perplexed him. It’s a symptom of infection of course. But my ear doesn’t actually hurt.

Now that I know my ear is free of wax, I can tell that something’s not quite right.

It feels like my right ear and sinus is inside a cardboard box. And kind of itches.
O great. I always wondered what I would do with serious hearing loss. Hopefully this won’t end up that way.
Since it doesn’t actually hurt, I’m going to wait a few days and see if it clears up.

Technology stole several minutes from my class yesterday as I attempted to show them a DVD of the Bach Freiburg Orchestra playing the first movement of the Fifth Brandenburg.

Of course the DVD player would not work. Roads were snow covered here in Michigan so it took me a full fifty minutes to do a twenty-five minute drive. I arrived with about five minutes to spare. Got to the class and the DVD player would not work for me.

Went to the office (hah) and reported it with unfelt civility.

Came back and tried it on the computer. AHA! It worked.

So I handed back papers. The IT guy came while I was doing this. When I pointed out that I had the DVD queued up on the Mac computer, he was satisfied and left.

Of course, after I handed back papers and attempted to play the DVD on the computer, it was no longer loud enough to hear. Another several minutes while I tried to figure out how to change it. I ended up ejecting it and putting it back in and lo and behold that worked.

This kind of bumbling around increases my sense of my own ineffectiveness.

Then the review for Thursday’s quiz seemed to catch the class completely unprepared. At least no one who knew stuff was talking and most everyone looked a bit confused. Oy!

By the time I had finished the review, I had about fifteen minutes left to give two listening quizzes (one practice for Thursday, one extra credit over material the students were supposed to have studied for that class) and teach the new concepts.

I just managed to give the two quizzes.

This morning I finished looking at these.

It surprised me that close to half of the class identified three or more out of five pieces that they were supposed to have listened to for class. And three people identified all five.

This is encouraging.

Wow. I was poking around on my Blackboard site and found an announcement that the GVSU campus is closed today.

Of course, I don’t teach, but still…..