One of my new favorite composers/improvisors was interviewed on Ear to Ear on WNYC recently, the cellist Okkyung Lee. This is a great interview with Okkyung, and all of the music that is played is unreleased at the moment. Songs feature Ikue Mori, John Hollenbeck, Peter Evans, and more.
Ear to Ear: Okkyung Lee
I enjoy her music because it tastefully escapes the typical role of the improvisor. It seems to me that its far more about the textures of the ensemble than it is about the soloist-in-the-forefront moments that so many improvising groups center their musicmaking around. The songs aren't about individual's capabilities on their instruments but their imaginations that are coerced through their instruments and how they combine as a whole.
I always look forward to hearing something new coming from Okkyung Lee, and I urge everyone to open thier ears to her and enjoy.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Postal Pieces
I found a great paper on James Tenney's Postal Pieces. If you're not familiar with these, I highly recommend looking into them, both for the beautiful music and the idea of taking a simple idea and deriving a whole performance from it.
Here's the link.
I saw the bassist Robert Black perform "Beast" from the Postal Pieces, and it was so haunting and beautiful. I've heard that Sonic Youth also does a rendition of "Having Never Written a Note for Percussion".
Here's the link.
I saw the bassist Robert Black perform "Beast" from the Postal Pieces, and it was so haunting and beautiful. I've heard that Sonic Youth also does a rendition of "Having Never Written a Note for Percussion".
Is Music Melody, or Is It the Other Way Around? (footnote)
In my previous post, I attempted to tackle what, to me, has become a big issue and also a big interest. Are the building blocks of music as concrete as other artforms? And, if not, is that a bad thing? does that mean breaking them down and moving in directions away from tradition is even more valid? I'm not sure, but this is what I was trying to bring to mind. I'm sure there will be more of my thoughts on this in the future. (I'm not sure that my using melody as the basis for this was the most valid approach.)
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Is Music Melody, or Is It The Other Way Around?
Is a melody as strong of a building block as a sentence or an image? A sentence is able to convey a thought or an action. An image preserves a moment, which in turn allows for some sort of understanding (not that it must, but that it is able to). What does a melody do? It stays in our heads for some unknown reason, but what is it?
It is not composed of words with meanings to combine to a thought as a sentence is. A melody is merely a set of tones played in a specific order with specific durations and accents. There are those that would argue that melody conveys emotion. Major = happy, delightful. Minor = sad, depressed. But there is nothing of substance to lead to that; it is merely our reaction to sound. (And that reaction in itself may just be trained in us culturally. Maybe if, from childhood, we were shown happy images alongside minor melodies and horrifically depressing images alongside major melodies, we would have a different perspective on the meaning of a melody, or rather, what emotion a melody conveys.)
I guess my point is that melody, as a building block for music, does not seem to be as strong of a basis as say a sentence for literature or an image for a painting or a photograph or a film. Music, in itself, seems to have less of a logical reason to exist as an artform if melody is its only reason for existing.
This leads to my point of writing all of this: I hate when someone says that something is not musical because it lacks a melody. A melody, as I see it, is only a small part of the artform of music. Music is an artform composed of sound. A melody is a happy coincidence of putting the right notes in the right order and then...well there it is, a singable tune. But what about the beauty of the scrapes and scratches and noises of everyday life? of the sustained chords that seem that they'll never end, taking on a whole new life just through the fact of their duration? These are the things I love to hear used in music. And, well, defining when they are sounded together correctly that is up to the listener.
It is not composed of words with meanings to combine to a thought as a sentence is. A melody is merely a set of tones played in a specific order with specific durations and accents. There are those that would argue that melody conveys emotion. Major = happy, delightful. Minor = sad, depressed. But there is nothing of substance to lead to that; it is merely our reaction to sound. (And that reaction in itself may just be trained in us culturally. Maybe if, from childhood, we were shown happy images alongside minor melodies and horrifically depressing images alongside major melodies, we would have a different perspective on the meaning of a melody, or rather, what emotion a melody conveys.)
I guess my point is that melody, as a building block for music, does not seem to be as strong of a basis as say a sentence for literature or an image for a painting or a photograph or a film. Music, in itself, seems to have less of a logical reason to exist as an artform if melody is its only reason for existing.
This leads to my point of writing all of this: I hate when someone says that something is not musical because it lacks a melody. A melody, as I see it, is only a small part of the artform of music. Music is an artform composed of sound. A melody is a happy coincidence of putting the right notes in the right order and then...well there it is, a singable tune. But what about the beauty of the scrapes and scratches and noises of everyday life? of the sustained chords that seem that they'll never end, taking on a whole new life just through the fact of their duration? These are the things I love to hear used in music. And, well, defining when they are sounded together correctly that is up to the listener.
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