Education music Personal: Bamidele Ousamarea instrument-making Lou Harrison
by Warren
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Summoning The Future — Making Your Own Instruments
Making an instrument is one of music’s greatest joys. Indeed, to make an instrument is in some strong sense to summon the future. …. Almost no pleasure is to be compared with the first tones, tests and perfections of an instrument one has just made. Nor are all instruments invented and over with, so to speak. The world is rich with models — but innumerable forms, tones and powers await their summons from the mind and hand. Make an instrument — you will learn more in this way than you can imagine.
Lou Harrison’s Music Primer (quoted in Banek & Scoville, “Sound Designs”).
I remember reading somewhere that a natural ecosystem that had taken thousands of years to develop can be destroyed in ten minutes by a guy driving a bulldozer. That seems true enough; horrifying and depressing, but true. All evolution’s gradual work, building a wonderfully complex interdependent structure — turned into undifferentiated rubble in less time than it takes to read a blog post (yeah, I know, mine run on the long side, but anyway).
Think about ecosystems as analogies for the ways human beings relate to one another. Traditional societies are rich in ritual frameworks, cross-generational relationships, nuanced interactions with the natural world and shared cultural narratives — another “wonderfully complex interdependent structure” that can be trashed appallingly quickly by the bulldozer of Western consumer culture.
Singing enabled individuals to create and express certain aspects of self, it established and sustained a feeling of euphoria characteristic of ceremonies, and it related the present to the powerful and transformative past. The Suya would sing because through song they could both re-establish the good and beautiful in the world and also relate themselves to it.
Anthony Seeger — “Why Suya Sing,” p. 128
If we are to reclaim our humanity, we’ll need to sing. We’ll need to make music ourselves rather than buying it from someone else.
And one of the most meaningful ways to get started with that process is to make an instrument. Or two. Or three.
music: genius thomas quasthoff
by Warren
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Thomas Quasthoff Sings Schubert
These performances are absolutely extraordinary. Leaving aside the technical qualities of his singing (watch his lips as he handles the different vowels!) and the exquisitely sensitive accompaniment by Daniel Barenboim, what is most striking is the emotional truth of Quasthoff’s rendering.
These are some of the finest pieces of artsong I’ve ever heard.
Education Indian music music: layakari practice riyaaz tintal
by Warren
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The Half-Speed Switcheroo: Rhythmic Cycle Practice in Exhaustive Detail
Let’s go back into the problems of working within rhythmic cycles (too many climate-change letters makes a dull blog, I know).
One of the most productive strategies for practicing rhythmic awareness is the half-speed switcheroo (note: I am not a nomenclatural traditionalist, so if you need paramparik lingo you’ll be disappointed). In this type of practice, a composed line is moved in and out of half-speed, first at the most important points of the taal (in tintal, that would of course be sam and khali), then at secondary, tertiary and quaternary points.
Let me demonstrate.
We’ll continue working with the simple sargam composition in Bhoopali:
The melody begins at khali, so the first shift into half speed will happen there, too. I’m just going to notate the transform using the first line; you can do the second line yourself (or make your students do it). Paper notation is useful but not really necessary; it’s a very good exercise to go through every aspect of this without writing anything down, keeping it all in your head, ears, voice and hands.
Jazz music: Eddie Jefferson genius vocalese
by Warren
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Eddie Jefferson Makes Me Smile
Trane’s Blues
Eddie Jefferson (3 August 1918 – 9 May 1979) was a celebrated jazz vocalist and lyricist.
He is credited with having invented vocalese, a musical style in which lyrics are set to an instrumental composition or solo. Perhaps his best-known song is “Moody’s Mood for Love”, though it was first recorded by King Pleasure, who cited Jefferson as an influence. Jefferson’s songs “Parker’s Mood” and “Filthy McNasty” were also hits.
One of Jefferson’s most notable recordings “So What”, combined the lyrics of artist Christopher Acemandese Hall with the music of Miles Davis to create a masterwork that highlighted his prolific skills, and ability to majestically turn a phrase, in his style [jazz vocalese].
Jefferson’s last recorded performance was at the Joe Segal’s Jazz Showcase in Chicago and was released on video by Rhapsody Films.
Wiki
So What
The first time I heard his studio version of “So What” it just knocked me out. He captured Miles’ lyricism and openness perfectly…all the while singing a paean to the trumpeter. The live version is a bit faster, and Richie Cole plays great.
Here’s a studio recording from 1976 of “Sherry”
His voice is so full of warmth and welcome. I always felt that Eddie Jefferson was my friend.
Although there were a couple obscure early examples (Bee Palmer in 1929 and Marion Harris in 1934, both performing “Singing the Blues”), Eddie Jefferson is considered the founder, and premier performer of vocalese, the art of taking a recording and writing words to the solos, which Jefferson was practicing as early as 1949.
Eddie Jefferson’s first career was as a tap dancer but in the bebop era he discovered his skill as a vocalese lyricist and singer. He wrote lyrics to Charlie Parker’s version of “Parker’s Mood” and Lester Young’s “I Cover the Waterfront” early on, and he is responsible for “Moody’s Mood for Love” (based on James Moody’s alto solo on “I’m in the Mood for Love”). King Pleasure recorded “Moody’s Mood for Love” before Jefferson (getting the hit) and had his own lyrics to “Parker’s Mood,” but in time Jefferson was recognized as the founder of the idiom.
Jefferson worked with James Moody during 1955-1957 and again in 1968-1973 but otherwise mostly performed as a single. He first recorded in 1952 (other than a broadcast from 1949) and those four selections are on the compilation The Bebop Singers. During 1961-1962 he made a classic set for Riverside that is available as Letter from Home and highlighted by “Billie’s Bounce,” “I Cover the Waterfront,” “Parker’s Mood,” and “Things Are Getting Better.”
“Filthy McNasty”
Education music Warren's music: games improvisation
by Warren
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Musical Game Structures
Quite early in my musical life I became interested in Game Structures. I’ve already mentioned discovering some avant-garde composers through my high-school library’s bizarre decision to subscribe to “Source: Music of the Avant-Garde” during my junior year (two issues/year…and at the end of the year, noting that I was the only person who ever read them, and that I read them constantly, the librarians gave the magazines to me; they’re on the shelf behind me as I write). A few years later, living in Cambridge, I worked with Karl Boyle, who was writing some quite astonishing music that radically transformed the conceptual frameworks of everyone who participated in it.
Particularly important was a set of three pieces called the “Sound/Movement Murals,” an attempt to create performance structures which would engage musicians and dancers in the interpretation of a single set of instructions; all of us were “reading off the same score.” They were performed on stage in Boston; if I recall correctly it was as part of a festival of performance art.
These pieces have continued to influence me, off and on, for the last thirty years or so. Perhaps Karl has them somewhere in his files, and perhaps he would consider releasing them for others to learn from. I hope so.
In 1996 I was developing a music and music-making curriculum for the City of Boston’s After School program. As part of the materials, I wanted to include samples of alternative “notations,” so I generated a few pieces for inclusion in the curriculum (which is still available through Arts in Progress under the title “Ways of Listening”)
Jazz music Personal: Robert Rutman Sun Ra
by Warren
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Hanging Out With The Man From Saturn
Several people have asked me to tell the story of my encounters with Sun Ra.
Over a span of about six or seven years, I caught Sun Ra and his Arkestra in Boston at least eleven times. While that’s not a lot by Deadhead standards, it’s probably more than I’ve seen any other musician live, with the exception of the great khyal singer Bhimsen Joshi.
To an alienated, jazz-obsessed teenager in Boston’s western suburbs, the knowledge that there was a bandleading madman who claimed to be from outer space was incredibly welcome. My high school library maintained subscriptions to a wide variety of periodicals — the usual suspects (Time, Newsweek, Life), some slightly more unconventional choices (The New Yorker, Ms.), and a few that were pretty bizarre. Of these last, there were three that made a huge impression on me: The Village Voice (where I first read about conceptual art, Nam June Paik and Charlotte Moorman), Source: Music of the Avant-Garde (where I first heard of Cornelius Cardew, Christo, Steve Reich and Alvin Lucier), and Downbeat (where I kept up to date on all the latest jazz happenings, and where I first learned of the existence of Sun Ra).
music: blues Bobby Blue Bland genius
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Bobby Blue Bland Just Slaaaaaaays Me, Every Time.
Live in Chicago, 1977
The 80-year-old blues singer was honored by the Mississippi Senate yesterday:
Lawmakers honored Blues legend Bobby “Blue” Bland at the Capitol today.
The state Senate watched a video with Bland’s music, highlighting his achievements. Bland, 80, was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1981 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992 and received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997.
“I’m so happy to be here today,” Bland said.
Sen. David Jordan, D-Greenwood, said a Senate resolution honoring Bland is an “everlasting award to a great American.”
“We have with us an icon,” Jordan said.
Sen. John Horhn, D-Jackson, said: “If BB King is the king of the blues then Bobby Blue is the crowned prince.”
Education music: ear training epistemology Music education oral tradition
by Warren
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About Listening and Learning
A few years ago I was talking about Indian pedagogy to a mixed group of musicians and school-teachers in a classroom at New England Conservatory, and I asked for a volunteer. One girl raised her hand, and I enlisted her as a “student” in the Indian sense. With the drone in the background, I sang a short series of notes and looked at her expectantly. “Bonnie” reproduced them, a bit tentatively for all that she was a trained singer with an acute ear and a lovely voice. I tried another set of notes; she was a bit more confident this time around.
I decided to up the ante.
music: genius Mauritanian music
by Warren
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Music of Mauritania: Dimi Mint Abba
The sound on the first two clips is pretty bad, but the music is wonderful. I love the integration of the electric guitar with the traditional Mauritanian instruments.
Dimi Mint Abba is Mauritania’s most famous musician. She was born Loula Bint Siddaty Ould Abba in 1958 into a low-caste (“iggawin”) family specializing in the griot tradition.
Dimi’s parents were both musicians (her father had been asked to compose the Mauritanian national anthem), and she began playing at an early age. Her professional career began in 1976, when she sang on the radio and then competed, the following year, in the Umm Kulthum Contest in Tunis. Her winning song “Sawt Elfan” (“Art’s Plume”) has the refrain “Art’s Plume is a balsam, a weapon and a guide enlightening the spirit of men”, which can be interpreted to mean that artists play a more important role than warriors in society.
The next clip sounds great. What a voice she’s got! It’s followed by an interview segment in clip 2.
I Love Alim Qasimov’s Singing…
…just check this out:
And here he is with his daughter Fergana. Absolutely amazing:
Wiki:
Alim Qasimov, (born in 1957), is an Azerbaijani musician and is one of the foremost mugam singers in Azerbaijan. He was awarded the prestigious International IMC-UNESCO Music Prize in 1999, one of the highest international accolades for music. His music is characterised by his vocal improvisation and represents a move away from the traditional style of mugham.[1] Qasimov has recorded nine albums, three of which are mugham albums with his daughter, Ferghana Qasimova. He has performed internationally, including concerts in: France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Belgium, Spain, Brazil, Iran and the United States.