Last Friday Wes over at Walk in Brain made a post with a video of the Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain.

I enjoyed that performance so much that I went on a bit of a binge and watched a bunch of their stuff on YouTube. Besides their version of “Shaft”, this is among my favorites:

It reminds me of the “Pachelbel Rant” that gives my theory students a good laugh each and every spring. In fact, I might start my theory class this fall with this, just to introduce my long running teaching point about the need to understand what is similar about different pieces of music so that we can really get to the essence of what makes each of them unique.

While Joe Queenan rants about the uselessness of modern classical music (read about it on Felsenmusik), I quietly enjoyed a terrific chamber concert last night that featured (along with Hugo Wolf and some guy named Brahms) Schulhoff’s Concertina for flute, viola, and double bass.

The EMF musicians gave their usual terrific performances of all of the pieces, but for me it’s always and forever about the music. The Wolf Italian Serenade was a charming piece and the Brahms trio is an exquisite work, but for me, the Schulhoff simply stole the show. Yes, his life was tragically cut short by the the Holocaust, but how he remains in relative obscurity is beyond my comprehension.

I mentioned in my last post that I had accepted a second part-time position to teach theory and aural skills. With the need to re-invest in my commitment to aural skills and the feeling that I have lost my edge, I have decided to take the plunge away from the traditional materials that I have used for years and select Gary Karpinski’s Manual for Ear Training and Sight Singing as the textbook for my courses. I have long admired Professor Karpinski and think that enhancing my teaching with his approach to aural skills a refreshing challenge at this stage of my career. I’m curious to hear from anyone who has used his texts in their classes.

To help with my transition, I am currently in the process of spending my EMF days in the local university’s well equipped music library poring over journal articles and re-acquainting myself with his influential pedagogical text. In the process I am also reading some of the articles about music therapy curricula with the vague notion that I might be able to provide something more to the therapy students at Marvyille and perhaps to the theory/therapy communities as a whole. (Besides, given the fact that theory jobs outnumber composition jobs somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 to 1 or more, it certainly can’t hurt to work up the chops and pedagogy is my only research passion.)

At some point, I might also try to write some music, though I think it will be more natural to return to this once the rhythm of the school year returns in just about 7 weeks. I do tend to write more and better music when I’m the most busy anyway!

In my current role as supportive husband and adjunct faculty, I’ve got plenty of time on my hands. So much time in fact that I feel that I need to find a few more diversions to keep myself motivated and busy. After all, opportunities often come at unexpected times and as I’ve recently learned, the old saying about making one’s own luck is a good piece of advice, and the business of manufacturing good fortune just can not wait until tomorrow.

Throughout my life, I’ve always observed that when I feel the busiest and under the most pressure I have also been the most productive. With the end of my spring semester last week and without our normal trip to Europe to occupy my time, I’ve got even more downtime than usual so I intend to throw myself into a few projects in the hope that it helps keep my mind engaged and spurs on my creativity.

Although I have several compositions to finish and a collaborative project that’s been on hold for over two years that needs to be addressed, I want to take on some research in theory pedagogy that has been bouncing around my melon for a few weeks and also seriously consider getting out into the community and doing some volunteer work once school resumes in the fall.

In the future I’ll have some more on the research I’ve been thinking about, but in the meantime, I really wanted to get a sense of what sort of community service my peers and colleagues are doing out there. What are some good ideas and good ways that you’ve brought music to your community, especially those that involve education, children, and don’t require the infrastructure and financial backing of a university or college to be successful?

LONDON — They had rehearsed the piece only once, but already the musicians at the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra were suffering. Their ears were ringing. Heads throbbed.

Tests showed that the average noise level in the orchestra during the piece, “State of Siege,” by the composer Dror Feiler, was 97.4 decibels, just below the level of a pneumatic drill and a violation of new European noise-at-work limits. Playing more softly or wearing noise-muffling headphones were rejected as unworkable.

So instead of having its world premiere on April 4, the piece was dropped. “I had no choice,” said Trygve Nordwall, the orchestra’s manager. “The decision was not made artistically; it was made for the protection of the players.”

“Composers should bear in mind that they are dealing with people who are alive, and not machines,” said Mr. Nordwall of the Bavarian orchestra.

(From Sarah Lyall’s article “No Fortissimo? Symphony Told to Keep It Down” in today’s New York Times.)

It does not take much imagination to realize that if these new European Union regulations were in place in May of 1913, some orchestra manager would have told Stravinsky that the decision to cut Le Sacre du printemps was not made artistically, but rather for the protection of the players. On the bright side, it would have prevented a riot and saved the Paris police the trouble of heading down to the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées.

That’s not really the point though because anyone who knew about these new laws could see this coming from miles away. What really caught my eye was the irony in the comments of Mr. Nordwall. It’s funny that he would presume to advise composers on the nature of life and death as it relates to the performance of classical music. The program for his orchestra’s concert this coming Thursday:

Johannes Brahms: Variations on a Theme by Franz Joseph Haydn op. 56a
Alban Berg: Three Pieces for Orchestra op. 6
Pyotr Ilyitch Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6 in B minor op. 74 “Pathétique”

Under normal circumstances, I would say that it looks to be a fun program and one that I would be happy to attend. Unfortunately, after Mr. Nordwall’s comments and because I have no problem recognizing the difference between musicians who are alive and those who are not, all I can see on that program is 1897, 1935, and 1893.

Belfry at Mission San Juan Bautista

To summarize the linked story, Ascencion was a Native American and the last known native speaker of the Mutsun language spoken by the Amah Mutsun tribe in the Central Coast area of California (roughly San Luis Obispo to Santa Cruz.) In 1929, Ascencion was visited by the noted Smithsonian linguist John Peabody Harrington who recorded her oral history. After seeing a photograph of Ascencion in the San Francisco Chronicle, her story came to the attention of Fresno State University professor Helene Joseph-Weil who then created a libretto version that was set to music by her colleague, composer Benjamin Boone. (If you are interested, there is a nice audio slideshow with an excerpt from the piece linked to the NPR article. )

When I first saw the article, I was immediately reminded of the story of Ishi, the last known surviving member of the Yahi tribe, who in August of 1911 wandered into Oroville, California. (Very near where I completed my undergraduate degree.) Ishi was subsequently moved to San Francisco where he provided a wealth of information about his people and his native Yana language.

What I found particularly interesting though, is that one of the University of California linguists who worked with Ishi was a gentleman named Alfred L. Kroeber who in turn gave several lectures attended by a student at nearby Stanford University by the name of John Peabody Harrington. Perhaps not a surprise, but I like finding these sort of connections.

It appears that my post noting how much that I think the recent reconstruction of Bach resembles Hank Hill’s father Cotton from the animated series King of the Hill was recently mentioned in Molly Sheridan’s “Friday Informer” column on the AMC’s New Music Box website.

Though I doubt that this is the beginning of my big move to the vanguard of American Music, it is still amusing. (I must admit that I’ve got the theme song from The Jefferson’s stuck in my head…)

In an effort to provide good solid musical examples for my theory class this week, I found myself rummaging through a musty, coleoptera infested chest when I discovered a manuscript with the following fragment of music:

Based on my preliminary research, I learned that it might have been composed in Germany during the 18th Century by one of two obscure composers: Johann Wolfgang Länänn (1726-1788) or Jakob Paul Magürtnei (1742-1812). According to my reading, it seems that both of these composers were born in the city of Leber-Lache and surprisingly both lived and worked in the town of Apfel and were likely employed by a Georg Heinrich Marten at the famed Röder Abbey.

What I can’t puzzle out is the meaning of the inscription “Tschüss Judit!” in the margin…

Second semester theory is one of my favorite semesters to teach for a variety of reasons. However, after teaching it for so many consecutive years, a pattern has emerged and I’m hoping that perhaps some of my more experienced readers can chime in with their own observations.

It seems that just about this time every year some of my students reach their saturation point with the material. This generally results in a great deal of frustration and in some cases an inability to make decisions on the page, especially on test days. The students tend to start well when part-writing begins, but as the harmony and rules begin to pile up, there comes a point when the wheels to come off for a selected few, usually around the time that second inversion usage is introduced.

Fortunately, this is also the time when I typically switch gears and spend a few weeks talking about phrase structures and periods, leaving the minutiae of the SATB petri dish for bigger concepts and more musical settings. Experience has taught me that this break from the overt and relentless discussion of harmony seems to recharge most of the students and allows them to sort out whatever issues they might have been struggling with up to this point in the course.

This is important for me to remember because the frustration in this afternoon’s classroom was palpable. Has anyone else experienced this phenomenon and do you have any tricks that you’ve picked up over the years to help students through this period?

CNN released a story today about an anthropologist who reconstructed Bach’s face from a copper casting of his skull. I think it’s pretty interesting to see what he might have looked like, but to be honest, it’s a bit disappointing to me.

For some reason, I have a hard time reconciling the fact that the composer of the “The Musical Offering” looks a bit like Hank Hill’s father from “King of the Hill.”