ars antiqua

"unison, fourth and fifth. all other intervals are shit!"

the beginning is a little slow, give it about 90 seconds.

thanks to david ocker at mixed meters

breeding stock

i just heard from martin perlich that next week's pledge-drive at KCSN has been canceled and this probably signals the university wanting to change the format and ship all the programming to a syndicate like minnesota public radio.

most of this town is already run from elsewhere, we have seen how that is working with first the latimes, the the laweekly and now this. for research on my latest piece i have been reading mike davis's prescient 1990 "City of Quartz". the following line stuck in my head this morning and now i know why.

"The steller success of Los Angeles as a real-estate, media and technology mecca is overwhelming its traditional upper classes, diminishing their autonomy and clout. This is not to suggest they are somehow becoming pauperized- indeed they are becoming wealthier-, but rather that they are surrendering power, which is different from mere money, to others strategicially established in the new circuits of lnad monopoly and global finance. LA 2000, despite offical hype about being 'THE city of the 21st century' will largely be an entrepot for megabanks and technology monopolies headquartered elsewhere. It will also continue to be the urban equivalent of the Spanish Main for the corporate buccaneers and nottori-ya from all over the world. Its old WASPish elites, especially, recumbent in their luxury, may linger primarily as consumers, comprafores, or just breeding stock. "

CSUN President
Jolene M. Koester
818-677-2121

Jolene.koester@csun.edu

Dean of Arts, Media, and Communication
Wm Robert Bucker
818-677-2426
robert.bucker@csun.edu

CSUN Provost & VP of Academic Affairs
Harry Helenbrand

818-677-2957

harry.hellenbrand@csun.edu

requiem for a high homicide enclave

here is early view of the mockup trailer for my new piece;

requiem for a high crime enclave.
based on a deconstruction of purcell's funeral music for queen mary

(its probably viewed best in full screen)

performance venues and dates should be announced soon.

222

Since January 2008 there have been 222 homicides in LA county.



I’m not sure what to do about it, but I can’t stop thinking about it. It started when I came across the LA times Homicide Report (blog). For over a year reporter Jill Leovy and Rueben Vives had a simple and horrendous task, to document every homicide in LA county online. Its seems crazy that newspapers didn’t have do this before, but Leovy points out in a Zocolo podcast that the implied conventional wisdom is that as long as the majority of homicides occur in “high-homicide enclaves”, minimal effort and resources will be allocated by the state to solve this horrendous problem. You begin to realize that this has been going on for years, reading the blog and comments from friends, family and yes... rival gangs and enemies begins to give you an idea of how sheltered we have become.

I’m not sure how to fix it, but reading about it everyday has brings up more questions than it answers. My only response is to attempt to write a piece about it. Which for me brings up the immediate question, how can you do that without people running out the door. All I know is that probably no matter how hard I try its going to be seen as polemic.

The music is done, music and text based on a harmonic deconstruction of Purcell’s Funeral Music for Queen Mary. What better than “borrowing” music from one of the most famous funerals of a British Monarch (1694), to honor those whose brutal deaths who continue to go unnoticed.

fake old new world

just listened to the kpcc (los angeles) zocalo podcast that featured uber architect thom mayne. like most discussions the interesting quotes start in the last five minutes (about 46:38). enjoy...

we are living in a time where the majority of people (maybe even some of you) prefer to live in fake french provincial or tudor or fake phony second rate spanish and it's like damn its the 21st century.

did you realize that modern architecture started 100 years ago?

what's the point, its a symbol what are you symbolizing? that the 19th's century was interesting? or the 18th or the 17th or whatever the fuck you think it is?

there isn't a whole lot of interest in forward progress here. there is a huge notion that we are somehow comfortable in living in this fake old new world that somehow has something to do with some idea of status, what it has to do with is that your dead already. you literally died. if your brain isn't operating if you aren't living in today, if you haven't got problems then why wake up?

if you talk to across the board to architects then the discussion centers around why aren't more people interested in the present and exploring what it means to be alive in the 21st century and how that effects living and how your environment is an extension of your creative potential...

what's so interesting about living in some dead architecture that didn't die for no reason?

on top of it its a copy of a bad fake, its layers of stuff that's even hard to perceive.

crack is back

just watched the opening episode of the wire season 5. gotta say david simon and the writers are still at the top of their game. in the opening scene bunk owns two kids in an interrogation with nothing more than a mcdonald's bag and a copy machine.

its one of the small victories that we have been allowed to enjoy over the last four seasons.

for those of you unfamiliar with the show here is david simon's quote on about the show from nick hornby's interview in the believer.

But instead of the old gods, The Wire is a Greek tragedy in which the postmodern institutions are the Olympian forces. It’s the police department, or the drug economy, or the political structures, or the school administration, or the macroeconomic forces that are throwing the lightning bolts and hitting people in the ass for no decent reason. In much of television, and in a good deal of our stage drama, individuals are often portrayed as rising above institutions to achieve catharsis. In this drama, the institutions always prove larger, and those characters with hubris enough to challenge the postmodern construct of American empire are invariably mocked, marginalized, or crushed. Greek tragedy for the new millennium, so to speak. Because so much of television is about providing catharsis and redemption and the triumph of character, a drama in which postmodern institutions trump individuality and morality and justice seems different in some ways, I think.

Life (We Cannot Retrace Our Steps)

my long life, my long life



RETRACE OUR STEPS is essentially a secular oratorio; a collection of thoughts, feelings, and opinions about modern life (consumerism, idealism, and alienation)
Traditionally oratorios functioned as a musical sermon, coordinated to biblical calendar to enhance the worship service. by setting these conflicting themes in a non-narrative format allows the contradictions and grey areas to become illuminated.

Instead of creating an “official” set of PROGRAM NOTES to accompany this recording (like the ones you are reading right now) I decided that a GRAPHIC LIBRETTO would far better bridge the gap between the trepidation many people feel today when listening to ART MUSIC (music meant for contemplation)

listen and download RETRACE OUR STEPS I-IV:
retrace our steps, act I
retrace our steps, act II
retrace our steps, act III
retrace our steps, act IV

download graphic libretto

download graphic libretto and retrace our steps mp3's (66mb zip file)

do you know?

in my long life

do you know
because I tell you so,
or do you know, do you know



retrace our steps, act IV>

not to what i won

I was a martyr all my life
not to what i won
but what was done

in my long life

in my long life, in my long life
life is strife

what made it live?

has it not gone, what made it live
has it not gone because now it is had



retrace our steps, act IV

but do i want?

but do I want
what we have got?




retrace our steps, act IV
text by guy debord

plagarism is necessary

The meaning of words
participates in the improvement
plagiarism is necessary
progress implies it

retrace our steps, act III

ideas improve

the greatness of art begins to appear
at the dusk of life
ideas improve


retrace our steps, act III

as a memory

it can only be evoked as a memory

a moment of life

a moment of life has grown old
and it cannot be rejuvenated with dazzling colors

in dazzling colors

when art, becomes independent
it depicts its world in dazzling colors



act III

unfolding of the universe

man’s appropriation of his own nature
is at the same time his grasp of the unfolding of the universe



retrace our steps, act III

unfolding

estrangement between man and man

the spectacle is materially the expression of the separation and estrangement between
man and man.

retrace our steps, act III

download mp3

behind the masks of total choice

I am not a genuine pamphleteer
I have nothing to say. I have nothing to write...
If I had something to say, I would be the first to say it
loudly, outrageously, and articulately...

Behind the masks of total choice
different forms of the same alienation confront each other
all of them built on real contradictions, which are repressed



retace our steps, act II
total choice

stockhausen served imperialism

in the spirit of cornelius cardew's 1974 polemic, stockhausen serves imperialism, on his former teacher, nemesis, and the newly dead (in the true spirit of the title of this blog) karlheinz stockhausen , 1928-2007, i put forward david ocker's more very personal mixed manifesto on "new music"

1. I lost my faith in new music years ago. Also my respect for certain "important" composers.
2. I did not lose my interest in new music although I expected to.
3. Living with this faithless interest has become the central issue of my middle-age creative musicianship.
4. I believe music can and should be challenging and involving and beautiful and provocative without being ponderous or academic.
5. There is a certain existential tension between these ideas and the way I earn my living: as a copyist of new pieces by "important" composers.
6. I no longer enjoy attending concerts. Exceptions do occur.
7. I prefer listening to recordings. iPod is good.
8. My time is limited. Life is short.
9. I feel fully qualified to predict from the music I already know whether I will enjoy music I haven't heard yet. You can't listen to everything. You have to have favorites. If you don't like something, say so.
10. The "important" centers of new music are in New York and Europe. California is the boonies and our new music scene is vastly underdeveloped for our size and economic clout.
11. What hapens in the centers of new music has become of only minor passing interest to me.
12. The New Music Pie is fixed in size. Maybe it's even shrinking. That would make new music a negative sum game
13. New music programming is more often based on the "importance" rather than the talent of the composers.
14. Recent programming by the Monday Evening Concerts and the Green Umbrella has disappointed me as overly Eurocentric.
15. Although I may not enjoy or attend new music concerts I support them and hope for their success. I once found them useful and others still do.
16. I enjoy "making up" music. I never refer to myself as a "composer" without adding the adjective "failed".
17. The choice between spending my time making up my own music and attending a concert of music by composers from traditions for which I have little tolerance or enthusiasm is easy.
18. I want my music to derive as much as possible from my immediate surroundings and culture at the current moment. Starbucks is the perfect metaphor for this.
19. Every piece of music should have elements immediately appreciable by any listener, from novice through professional.
20. I enjoy giving my pieces misleading titles.
21. Music is a fundamentally an abstract art and should avoid the overuse of lyrics.
22. I want my music to be unpredictable.
23. I have no interest in being part of an established musical movement or tradition, even as I am probably falling into the traps associated with certain California Maverick composers.
24. I have no reason, desire or ability to express the eternal verities through my music. Indeed, I doubt eternal verities are eternal, veritable or even expressible through music.
25. I've learned as much from negative examples and bad teaching as from positive and good.
26. I want to personally enjoy the acts of writing my music and listening to it later.
27. Writing about my music is difficult for me. I would like people who hear my music to enjoy it without having to read about it.
28. I can no longer say I've never written a manifesto.

because they are dead theme song
orlando, he dead
(just add karlheinz to the lyric's)
composed, doug hein
performed, cartesian reunion memorial orchestra

Orlando, Orlando, he dead, he dead, Orlando, he dead.

Josquin, Johann, Amadeus, Ludwig, they dead, they dead, all them guys they dead.

Buddy H., Brian J., Mama C. Karen C., they dead, they dead, all them guys, the dead.

La, la, la …

And when your dead your dead forever,

forever, forever, forever

You don’t go live no more,

no more, no more, no more.

You be dead more long than live

‘Cuz when your dead your dead forever,

Forever, forever, forever.

Some day me be dead,

Some day you be dead,

Some day me be dead,

Some day you be dead,

All us guys

We dead

La, la, la ….

tranquil center of misery

I wake up in the middle of the night in a sweat. I am gripped by the knowledge that I have nothing to say-That even if I could write a pamphlet everyone in the world would see, I would fail.

...the spectacle is nothing more than an image of happy unification surrounded by desolation and fear at the tranquil center of misery.



program notes
retrace our steps, act II

could the correct words make a difference in someone's life?

i wonder: if written in the correct order, could the correct words make a difference in someone's life?

what hides under the spectacular oppositions is a unity of misery.



retrace our steps, act 2
text, jenny bitner and guy debord

do you know you will burn in hell if you don't change your ways?

I am intrigued by the belief that a pamphlet could change a life. I remember those given to me with the images of a man burning amid fiery flames, and inside: "Change your life. Do you know you will burn in hell if you don't change your ways?"

what hides under the spectacular oppositions is a unity of misery.



retrace our steps, act 2
text jenny bitner (the pamphleteer) and guy debord (society of the spectacle)

ever more separated from his world

I wonder if such a pamphlet is possible, and what it could say.

separated from his product, man himself produces all the details of his world with ever-increasing power, and thus finds himself ever more separated from his world.

I am trying to devise the perfect pamphlet

I am trying to devise the perfect pamphlet, a pamphlet that if given to enough people could change the world.

In societies where modern conditions of productions prevail, all life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles.

retrace our steps, act 2
text jenny bitner and guy debord

retrace our steps, act 1

we cannot retrace our steps
going forward may be the same as going backwards.
we cannot retrace our steps, retrace our steps.
All my long life, all my life, we do not retrace our steps, all my long life, but...

(a silence, a long silence)

but-we do not retrace our steps,
all my long life, and her,
here we are her, in marble and gold,
did I say gold, yes I said gold, in marble and gold and where-

(silence)

where is where.
in my long life of effort and strife, dear life, life is strife,
in my long life it will not come and go,
i tell you so, it will stay in the pay but...


retrace our steps, act 1
text.gertrude stein
p.bailey 2005

life is strife

where is where.
In my long life of effort and strife, dear life, life is strife,
in my long life it will not come and go,
I tell you so, it will stay in the pay but...


retrace our steps, act 1
text.gertrude stein
p.bailey 2005

in marble and gold and where-

(a silence, a long silence)

but... -we do not retrace our steps,
all my long life, and her,
here we are her, in marble and gold,
did I say gold, yes I said gold, in marble and gold and where-

retrace our steps, act 1
text gertrude stein
p.bailey 2005

photo (eric richardson)

going forward may be the same as going backwards

we cannot retrace our steps
going forward may be the same as going backwards.
we cannot retrace our steps, retrace our steps.
all my long life, all my life, we do not retrace our steps, all my long life, but...


retrace our steps, act 1
text.gertrude stein
p.bailey 2005

Jake E. Lee shreds

the end of the world is upon us... and i want a front row seat

two birds with one stone

one of the great reasons of living in los angeles is sheer amount of interesting things to do. if i had the time (unfortunately i do not) i could have attended two readings of books that have simultaneously found their way to my nightstand. its some pretty great scheduling that both oliver sacks and alex ross are speaking at the la public library within a day of each other.

last night oliver sacks spoke on his book: musicophilia: tales of music and the brain. the amazon link has some good video and his interview with terry gross is available on the fresh air podcast

alex ross is also speaking thursday (10/25/07) night about his book the rest is noise: listening to music in the 20th century.

i didn't feel so bad once i found out that both events were sold out and standing room only. hopefully they will make podcast available of the discussions. so far i have been enjoying reading both of these books.

as a side note, in the 10/17 la weekly owen pallet (toronto-based musician who has created arrangements for indie artists arcade fire, bloc party and beirut...) in a group panel throws a little whoop-ass toward alex with this retort:

PALLETT: I’m going to come clean. When I think of new classical music, I feel like I need a cup of coffee and an Advil. I write it, listen to it and enjoy it, but honestly, I don’t think that any classical-music form — except the opera — has relevance to a large audience anymore. It’s retrogressive, but also totally intoxicating. Really, who needs an audience when we have our private little concerts to bask in our own technical virtuosity? Show off some idiomatic oboe writing? Why not?

But seriously, I love new classical music, but the world prefers Amy Winehouse, and so do I. New classical composers are fighting an uphill battle for any sort of relevance: trying to make any headway against the huge volume of amazing pop music out there, and also, trying to reinvent forms and ensemble choices that have existed for centuries.

This whole exchange we’ve had seems ?to have been geared toward “opening pop ears up to new classical music,” but this is a very old-guard conceit. I think that the quicker young classical musicians stop writing chamber music and symphonies, and instead start making albums, the better. Sorry we’re butting heads! I hate being so cantankerous to strangers, but that’s all for now.

in general would agree with most everything he said. although i should point out that i wasn't too impressed with his instrumental "arrangements" for the arcade fire at their hollywood bowl show in sept. his combination of unison baritone horn, french horn and violin inspired my wife to comment "too bad the band has to bring their girlfriends on tour"

on the other hand i really enjoy all the energy that alex puts into writing about the ever growing classical music online community, but i see why his efforts to bring music the masses by way of writing about the mostly dead (in his book) are not my most important reading. i think it is interesting to note that if you compare the contents of his book to michael nyman's experimental music not much has changed since 1974. (more on that another time)

admittedly, i am prejudging his arguments before reading the book (or judging a book by its metaphorical cover), but my intuition says that train has already left the station. its easy to say that when a tune from lcd soundsystem means more to me than what is playing at my local concert hall i think there its fair to ask "the rest is noise?"

how wonderful is brian ferneyhough?

so this is the post where i'm supposed to give you some special reason to come to our next show on tuesday september 25th. i just got back from a really great rehearsal and ready to start spreading the propaganda.

with the traffic in southern cal i know it takes a special kind of person to drive anywhere after a long day of work. the real question is why is this concert worth attending? first off we are sharing the concert with the new kids on the block of new music (NKOTBNM or as they liked to be called real quiet) the nyc based chamber group is making its first los angeles/oc appearance the just released their new album tight sweater (featuring the music of marc mellits)which is pretty frakkin' great. besides mellits music they are playing music of phil kline, and annie gosfield.

as for the pbe. i'm kinda surprised that we are even playing this show. last may it looked like curtains for the us, carl, ryan and bruce would all be leaving the pbe after graduation. thankfully bruce decided to stay for the time being and our original bass player matt menaged moved back into town this summer. this lineup is a powerhouse and has gelled quite nicely. i'd say its pbe 3.o.

so what about the show? or as they used to say "where's the beef?"our goals are very consistent and simple. we want to entertain you, we want to make you think and we want to have a great time performing music that we wouldn't get to play anywhere else. entertainment wise, its the strongest set we have yet played. as a show its got something for everybody; garage band jam's, covers, vocal fun and some modular improvisation. so go ahead see for yourself...

cheap admiration-
its technically a harmonic deconstruction of johann pezel's sonata ciacona in B. its a great introduction to what we do and always lets the audience know we are more garage band than chamber group.

fearless leader-
this tune has had more versions than a cat has lives. it started very unsuccessfully as an ambitious modular experiment that failed miserably in a live reviewed performance at whittier college (thanks again to the oc register's tim mangan for a really polite review of that debacle). over time it became more of an orchestration study. its not a perfect piece, but at the time i think i was creatively blocked and i looked at finishing it as a challenge to overcome. i keep asking the group if they want to take it out of the set, but they seem to like it more than me.

eye for optical theory
this probably has to be one of my favorite michael nyman tunes. i have never been able to find a score of it, so one summer i decided to write it down. its based on a repeated ground bass (kind of like fearless leader) and about halfway through i realized his "trick" is that he only was using combination of about 8-9 repeated melodies. my version plays on this and i just started with my sheet of melodies and hooked them together like lego's to make my own version. in last nights rehearsal i added a call and response introduction where our keyboard player eric plays one of the antecedent licks and we play its consequent answer. we play this game until he wants to start the piece and then plays the first line in octaves to let us know to go on. its fun way to bring a little life to one of our fluffier pieces. i also strongly feel that a night of any one composers music can be pretty exhausting. a little nyman along the way sets up the rest of the show really well.

life's too short
this is the showpiece of the night. its one of the few compositions that i have written that came out effortlessly fully composed and orchestrated. in our first rehearsal we played it head to toe without stopping once. its a pretty damn good piece and i'm still couldn't tell you how i wrote it. what is it about? self actualization through nihilism, nietzsche meet tony robbins. its in english. you will be able to understand the text. its over the top. its funny. its in your face.

in many ways i think its a conceptually a reaction of going to a very well performed master chorale concert in which all the music was by american composers but none of it was in english. everything was well written and orchestrated, but the concept of having your audience sit and listen to some "secret code" was insane. scanning the crowd from the back row of disney hall this performances seemed more dehumanizing as the evening wore on. the audience wanted to like it, and seemed desperate to connect with the music. (it was beautiful) but what kind of conversation goes on for an two hours in a variety of assorted foriegn languages? sitting in the audience felt like a strange ritual listening to an evening of recently composed choral music without theater or narrative.

anytime you add vocalists to anything its like hearding cats. on most nights the energy they add to an instrumental show can be hard to control. when they come on stage its easy for me to forget my job (the cues and conducting) because i really love to hear them sing. over time i realized that once i get them to the middle of most pieces we loosen up and have a lot of fun on the back end.

principle of sufficient irritation (11/25/05)
this is probably or favorite piece. its written in a modular style with a variety pre-composed melodic syncopated and ostinato lines. (terry riley's in C is the most famous ex