belated meme

thanks devin for the nudge....

Total Volume of Music on your computer?
studio pc-1198 songs, 7.5gb
studio mac, 2791, 18.6gb

Last CD you bought?
gimmie fiction, spoon

Songs/Albums/Podcasts currently playing?

i usually alternate between listening to pop music, art music, and my audible subscriptions of this american life. now that a cheaper version is available (podcasting) i have added some of the kcrw podcasts, and the wonderful bbc program in our time

right now i am in a pop music mode and these 3 albums are in heavy rotation:

spoon, gimmie fiction

weezer, make believe

my chemical romance, three cheers for sweet revenge

i have to admit all three albums are immediately accessible and disposable. its well crafted and fun. when i listen to pop music i'm not really a word guy, so i really haven't figured out what the songs and bands are about, but i like what their music is. each band has its own voice. good commuting music to distract from the drudgery of the daily grind.

Five songs that I listen to a lot or that mean a lot to me?
i'm not really a song guy, right now i think it is a phase i'm in. writing a good song is a pretty common skill. i'm more interested in the grand statements that composers make in their prime. by the way i'm not really a color in the lines guy so i my lists are a little messy.

1. eight lines, steve reich/music for 18 musicians, steve reich

one of the really embarrassing things about growing up in the suburban midwest was the lack of variety in the music i was exposed to. i think the reason i have such trashy taste in pop music has a lot to do with the middle of the road music i grew up with; journey, styx, chicago, rush, and yes... many harder rock or alternative groups were frowned upon by my parents. it wasn't until college my ears started to open up and the first alternative music i was exposed to was reich ( by my very patient and frustrated teacher walter mays. i wasn't ready to study anything, but instead of composing he wisely had me listen to music each week)
its kinda funny that before i heard any real "alterative" music like talking heads, pixies, b-52's... i was into reich, glass and adams.
my life changed after hearing reich's music. i'm not sure which piece of music i heard first, but the bootleg tape i made in the library wore out long before i could afford to by the cds.

2. coronation of poppea, monteverdi/book 8 madrigals of war and love, monteverdi

i had studied a lot of music when i got grad school, and was pretty adamant about who and what i was. long compositions were by people who couldn't edit themselves. by being part of the early mtv generation i really didn't have the patience to listen to any piece over 30 minutes. after i studied these pieces my thoughts started to change. both works represent monteverdi when he was at his prime! in his 70's no less. although i am not a big opera buff, i have been told that the coronation of poppea is one of the most "pure" operas ever written. no extra scenes, a wonderful mixture of recitative and aria, clear and well developed plot and characters, and the bad guys win at the end. the libretto by busonello seems like it was written yesterday. absolute power corrupts absolutely, and there is nothing you can do about it.

studying the book 8 madrigals of war and love were also a high point. monteverdi organized them in two parts, the first half is about falling in love and how hard and difficult it is to chase the girl (war). the second half is all about once you are in love how unhappy love can be. i'm not a musicologist, but the madrigals seem to be for an evening of entertainment for the local royalty. the result is an entertaining collection of the trials and tribulations of love. i really was drawn into the material of taking a subject (love) and instead of getting to the point through a story (narrative), a much more intricate and nuanced groundwork could be layed out through this weird subject drama/secular oratorio. after studying the book 8 madrigals i saw the connections that go through the works of virgil thomson, robert ashley, philip glass, and laurie anderson.

3. einstein on the beach, philip glass

this piece is kind of like tolstoy's war and peace. everybody quotes it, but how many people have read it or understand it? i had heard parts of it and liked for years, but never really had the time to take it all in. after my monteverdi studies i felt like it was time and i was not disappointed. someone told me there are three types of successful compositions;

1. the ones that you like and figure you could compose yourself
2. the ones that you admire and hope to write someday
3. the few that knock you out of your seat and cannot comprehend how a human could do that

after listening to the whole piece, i felt as if i discovered the pyramids. in its parts the piece is somewhat comprehendible, but as a unified work i challenge you to listen to the whole thing without stopping and not cry at the end. (hell i haven't even seen the damn thing) there is something that both monteverdi and glass have in common that is scary. in their best works, the scores are simple 3 line pieces. when i finally got a look at the einstein score, it looked so simple similar to the monteverdi i was floored.

4. the little prince, lloyd rodgers/the black book, lloyd rodgers

lloyd... my mentor and teacher (of course i'm biased). i could talk about lloyd and what he means to his students for days, but his music stands on its own. the little prince was a chamber ballet collaboration between lloyd and artist mark stock, and choreographer raiford rogers that premiered at the japan american theatre in the mid-80's. ( i have a vhs tape that needs to move to dvd very soon) the music from the little prince is deceptively simple and impossible to get out of your head and stands as the definitive version of Antoine de St. Exupery’s wonderful story.

little prince overture mp3

the black book moves in the opposite direction of the little prince. composed daily from december 2000-december 2001, the black book is a collection musical epigrams, sketches and exercises of open and modular notation. they represent the work of an artist who doesn’t need the conceit to “write it all down” anymore. by choosing to deal with the seeds of composition and notation, each day of lloyd’s monumental blueprint can be realized into for their own indeterminate beauty.

Five people to whom I'm passing the baton:
veronica paez, daniel wolf, shane cadman (dude start your blog already), scooter piestch (you too!), and alex shapiro

for those of you lurkers....
if you check in from time to time to read this but don't have your own blog. now is a good time for you to join the blogging world... get to it!!

final note
for those of you who have been patiently reading empty space in my blog, sorry the well has been pretty dry for the last 2-3 months.
life and career changes are pretty taxing. i'm now onto the next professional phase of my "dayjob". after 11 years of teaching 5-12 grade students, i'm moving into the part-time college teaching world. one day you realize your not getting any younger and time is more important than money. its a pretty scary step to take, hopefully one of my retirement accounts will be around in about 30 years.

bach wins! see you tonight!