Refugees, Hope, and a Cello

My friend Webb sent me this photo he came across the other day, taken by Robert Capa in 1939. This is a member of the Barcelona Philharmonic who fled Spain during the Spanish Civil War, The place is Bram, France. The caption of the photo from the news source reads "Former member of the Barcelona Philharmonic at an internment camp for Spanish refugees."
It's an exceptionally powerful photograph. The eyes are vacant. He looks exhausted...hungry....lost. He clutches the one thing that probably gave him hope and comfort.....his cello. I don't know anything about this person, and no other details were provided. I did read that many such refugees were killed in these camps. A year after this, France fell to the Germans who instituted their own horrific treatment of refugees and lost souls who found themselves displaced or labeled as "undesirable."
And what about his cello? What jumped out to me was that it is not in a case. He, and the others in this picture, are wearing heavy coats. Fine instruments don't do well in cold weather, exposed to the elements. Perhaps he was playing it when this picture was taken. What was he playing, I wonder? Perhaps a Bach Cello Suite?
Given the events in our world today, this 76 year old picture seems like it could have been taken yesterday. If he was playing it at the time of the photo, I imagine the sweet, rich sounds only a cello can make gave him, and those around him, a brief sense of peace and comfort.
To that end, let's listen to some beautiful cello music.

Mozart for Infiniti

Mozart's opera, The Magic Flute, premiered on September 30, 1791. And now, 224 years later, the music from his classic opera is being used to market the 2015 Infiniti QX60 SUV. The commercial is called "Be Ready to Winter". Here's a description from iSpot.tv:

Somewhere in the snowcapped mountains, a gray flag reading "Be Ready to Winter" waves in the wind. A 2015 Infiniti QX60 glides by in slow motion to the overture of Mozart's The Magic Flute. Inside, a family eats popcorn with smiles on their faces. A man in an Infiniti Q70 drives down a ski slope, weaving through the flags, while a woman reverses her Infiniti QX50 through a cone-marked path. Soon, the cars come together against a backdrop of snow and clouds.

Some of you may not like classical music being used to market products of any kind. I disagree completely. Any exposure classical music gets in popular media where it reaches a wide audience, is a good thing. I understand that most people won't know what they are hearing....but that's where I come in....and you. We can learn what it is, and talk about it...and listen to The Magic Flute on Youtube or Spotify etc.....and explore it further.

Here is the commercial:

10 Questions for Jazz Legend, Pat Metheny

I've been a big fan of Pat Metheny for a long time...since about 1979. He's an exceptional guitarist, songwriter, composer, performer, musician, and innovator. When I moved to Lee's Summit twenty years ago, I thought it was cool that I was in his hometown. I read an interview he gave several years ago in which he talked a little about classical music and I wanted to know more about his relationship with this genre. I reached out to his publicist and requested an interview. Pat is very busy he explained, but if I agreed to email the questions to him, it would be easier for him to answer them. I was so excited to see that he actually took the time to do this interview with me, and I think you will agree he is very thoughtful and genuine. What a class guy. Enjoy!

1. Did you hear much classical music in your home growing up?

I remember my mom bought one of those classical music series of 10 or 12 records that was in the “all the classical music you will ever need” category at the local A and P grocery store. She always had music on at home. I wouldn’t say that my folks were aficionados, but they were very aware of classical music. But at that time I would say that most middle class people were - much more so than now anyway.

2. I read an interview from several years ago where you were asked if you listened to Wagner…to which you replied there was too much modulation going on…you wished he would stay in one place. But you did say you were into the “Russian guys…Stravinsky, Prokofiev, etc…. And the French…Debussy, Ravel and Satie. What classical composers, if any, interest you these days?

I must have meant the Wagner comment as a kind of a joke - actually the more modulations the better for me! While I feel an ongoing attraction to trying to understand all the composers that you listed and many others (Berg, Webern, etc.), I don’t feel like I have ever really had the time to devote to sitting down with scores and spending the months I believe it takes to truly digest that music with the kind of seriousness that I have been compelled to invest in other forms. I keep thinking someday I will. I would love that.

But, I do need to add - as much as I love the musicians on your list there, hands down the most important composer in this general realm for me was J.S. Bach. His music has a place in my life that rivals that of Charlie Parker and John Coltrane in that in addition to loving it as a fan, any time spent under the hood with it also has an instant pragmatic effect on the specifics of what I aspire  to achieve in music myself.

3. Many musicians I speak to tell me they don’t actually listen to music very often. Do you find time to listen to music purely for enjoyment?

Earlier in life, that wasn’t true - I was listening constantly, but as the years have gone on, I probably do fit that description. The main reason is simply time - most hours of the day are set on “output” for me - I have almost no time for “input”. This is especially true since I have had kids. In addition, when I do get a moment away from having to generate ideas, I have a real craving for nothing - no sound or music at all is about my favorite way to spend an hour or two. 

4. To that end, do you still listen to vinyl? 

I know about the recent revival of interest in vinyl, but having lived through it the first time, I am less enthusiastic about it than many I guess. I understand that there is a kind of mystique about it which I attribute to the fact that most people prefer a noise floor to the almost unreal sense of “digital black” that exists in the digital world. The truth is, 16 bit/44.1 CD’s are not great either, let alone MP3s. What is really sad is that most people have never heard digital sound as we have been hearing it in the studio for the past 10 years or so - that being  in the much more advanced 24 bit/96+k audio form. To me, this sound is far better than vinyl in every way - it is essentially identical on output as it is on input. However, unless you buy your records from HDTracks.com (highly recommended) and have a home system set up with super hi res D to A converters, you have never really heard what most of these recordings actually sound like. Probably the best aspect of me about vinyl is the size of the artwork and the immersive experience that it offers. 

5. During improvisation, do any classical themes or melodies ever inspire or shape your soloing?

I should probably cut to the chase here. I am not a huge fan of the whole idea of “genre” or styles of music kind of to start with. To me, music is one big universal way of living and being. The musicians who I have admired the most are the ones who have a deep reservoir of knowledge and insight not just about music, but about life in general and are able to illuminate the things that they love in sound. When it is an individual who can do that on the spot, as an improviser, that is usually my favorite kind of musician - but the same instinct to describe the most personal and essential elements of an individuals identity through written material is essentially the same activity happening; albeit at a very different temperature. 

I feel like I am a musician in this broadest sense first. And all the subsets of the way music often gets talked about in terms of the words people use to describe music is basically just a cultural/political discussion that I have found that I am really not that interested in in the same way I am interested in the spirit and sound of music itself.

As far as what is happening under the hood while improvising, I always try to let the music at hand decide what direction I go in in terms of orchestration and scope and sensibility. I am pretty happy to play in a really dense way, or a really sparse way, or really loud or really soft or all over the dynamic range, really inside the chords or outside the chords…it kind of doesn’t matter too much for me - it is whatever seems to sound best for what is happening at that particular moment.

It is the creative impulse itself that attracts me - much more than any arbitrary sense of what makes one set of possibilities different from any other.

6. Over the past year, I have been fascinated to learn about and share in my writing that many famous composers performed in Kansas City: Ravel, Strauss, Prokofiev, Bartok, Rachmaninoff, Respighi, and Honegger, to name a few. I also learned that Django Reinhardt played in KC with the Duke Ellington Band in 1946 at the Pla-Mor at Linwood and Main St. Do you enjoy Django’s music, and have you given any thought to a Django-styled Hot Jazz project of your own?

Of course I love Django. I didn’t know that he had played in Kansas City - that is amazing. To me, like most of the truly great musicians in our general realm, he is literally inimitable. Except for the very early days of my time playing, I have never really spent much time or energy devoted to imitating someone else. To me, the idea is to “do what they did, not what they did”. In other words to define your own voice in sound and spirit. That is the essential point of it all for me.

7. During your time in KC, did you ever play with Claude “Fiddler” Williams? 

There was a record date possibility that came up that I wasn’t able to do at the time - and I really regret that I didn’t. I did get to hang out with him a couple of times though, which was incredible. He was such an amazing person as well as being a fantastic musician.

8. As a musician myself (violinist with the Heritage Philharmonic in Independence, MO) I have been dealing with some of the challenges of getting into my middle years...(I just turned 50). I have tinnitus and my memory is a bit of a challenge these days. How is your hearing? Do you take any special precautions with your hearing when you play? Are you able to concentrate at the same level during a performance as you did when you were younger?

Knocking on wood as I write this - but no, there is no difference on the negative side in any way for me as the years go by. To the contrary, everything is much easier and much more enjoyable for me the longer I have played. I have always considered music to be really hard work; it has never been easy for me. But maybe for that reason, I have a kind of work ethic towards music that necessitates the constant thing for me of having to maintain a certain level through diligent practice and consideration. I never have taken anything for granted and probably never will. So, I am used to having to work hard to maintain a certain level. 

 Regarding hearing, yes, I have been standing a few feet away from various people beating on skins and metal with big wooden sticks for 2 hours a night for almost 45 years now. There are a few dips here and there in the spectrum, but it isn’t major (again, knocking on wood)

9. This is the standard classical music question, so please humor me: You have to live on a desert island and can only take the musical catalogs of 5 classical composers with you to listen to. Who are your 5? (mine are Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Debussy and Bruckner).

Actually I would only need one….

Bach.

10. Not to suck up too much, but I am a huge Pat Metheny fan. I am also a runner, and one of my running routes takes me right by Lee’s Summit High School. It’s pretty cool to think that you were once a student there, beginning to shape yourself into such an incredible musician and creative force. I never get tired of listening to It’s For You…or Sueno con Mexico...or Above the Treetops…or Are you Going With Me?……ok, I will stop now…….

That’s great! You must be the only one! No one out there seems to really be that interested in my thing and never really were even way back when. It has always been that way….football and sports seem to be the dominant thing there.

Last question: Do you think growing up here in the KC area had anything to do with your development and success, or were you destined to be who you are today no matter where you would have grown up?

Growing up there was huge for me on a few different fronts. First of all, just the geography and the nature of the land itself around eastern Jackson County is fundamentally a thing for me. I carry that with me everywhere as I travel around the world and it informs everything I do. Lee’s Summit was very different in the years I grew up in, but if you go to the older parts of town, they remain almost unchanged. Whatever that feeling is, it is all the place in the music that I have made.

But maybe more importantly, the scene that existed in Kansas City during that era and the way that that community embraced me as a 14 or 15 year old kid had an enormous effect on me and provided me with a way of learning about this music at a high level that I can’t imagine happening anywhere else. I was unbelievably lucky to be able to be hired by trumpeter Gary Sivils and to have the chance to sit next to and learn from drummer Tommy Ruskin on and off the bandstand. 

Ogives

o·give

ōˈjīv/

noun

plural noun: ogives

1. 1.

   ARCHITECTURE

   a pointed or Gothic arch.
2. 2.

   STATISTICS

   a cumulative frequency graph.

I wrote about Erik Satie recently....my favorite jazz pianist. I used his 3 Sarabandes as an example of his jazz-like playing which 50 years later was echoed by Theolonius Monk. Satie's chord structures, chord voicings, and harmonic formatting were, and still are, very original. I love the moods and feel that Satie's music creates. If you have ever heard his Gymnopedies and Gnossiennes, you hopefully appreciate the beauty and serenity they invoke. This month, I "discovered" his Ogives, a set of 4 pieces he composed in 1886 and were first published in 1889. I had no idea what an ogive was, nor any idea of the story behind this composition. As you can see from the definition above, an ogive is the pointed part of a Gothic arch. According to Dr. Caroline Potter, in her book Erik Satie: Music, Art and Literature, he spent days sitting in Notre Dame Cathedral contemplating their form for they "symbolized the medieval and esoteric world in which Satie was interested."

Notre Dame is a special place. I have been there many times, and spent time just sitting and looking at it in amazement. I can see how Satie would be transfixed by its power and beauty of form. What's just as amazing is the way this composition creates the image of a cathedral in your mind when you hear it. It took me inside....I could see the ogives myself....I could sense the space around me, the enormous vaulted ceiling, the stained glass.....all of it. Dr. Potter said it perfectly: "In all four Ogives, Satie harmonized the main melodies solely with block chords, which provided a still, solemn, and solid character. Since the entire piece was full of block chords, visually, they resembled building blocks in architecture. In this case, these vertical blocks were reaching for the ceilings of the solemn cathedral with its imposing pointed arches (ogives)."

It's a remarkable piece of music. And in Satie's words himself, published in 1889 in the February 9th edition of Journal du Chat Noir, "The indefatigable Erik-Satie, the sphinx-man, the composer with a head of wood, announces the appearance of a new musical work of which from henceforth he speaks most highly. It is a suite of melodies conceived in the mystic-liturgical genre that the author idolizes, and suggestively titled Les Ogives."

Great Chords: Beethoven's 6th Symphony

Definition: chord (kord)~noun: a group of (typically three or more) notes sounded together, as a basis of harmony.

"Beethoven's Pastoral is no musical cul-de-sac. It's a radical work, and in it's final movement is music more purely spine-tingling and life-enhancingly joyful than almost anywhere else in his output." - Tom Service.

"But however the case may be, the glory of unchaining the devil in music belongs to Montreverde. That was the beginning of modern music. Later, a new third was superimposed and they dared the chord sol-si-re-fa-la. The inventor is unknown, but Beethoven seems to have been the first to make any considerable use of it. He used the chord is such a way that, in spite of it's current use today, in his works it appears like something new and strange." Camille Saint-Saens.

When I started playing the violin back in 1973, the program I was in also included classes in music theory and music literature. I began to learn the language of music, and its history. Seeing notes on a page is, for me, an almost magical thing. These lines and dots are the code for beautiful sounds. Music theory was not easy, and I found it did not get any easier as I continued to study it in college. But I learned enough to be able to dissect some of the wonderful moments that I came upon while listening to and playing music.
The grouping of notes into a chord has unique power. One chord can establish, change, define or destroy the mood and feel of a song, sonata or symphony. And there are those special chords that stand out in some works that grab you and send chills down your spine. For example, the open chord of the Beatles song "Hard Day's Night" is very unique. At the time it was released in 1964, nothing in rock music sounded anything like it. Its a great song, but it's this one chord, Fadd9, that became famous. Here is a great analysis of that chord and how it was voiced and recorded:

Beethoven wrote his Symphony no. 6, the Pastoral, in 1808. If you are like me, it's hard to say which Beethoven symphony is my favorite because they are all so great. For a long time, I leaned towards his 7th Symphony as my favorite. But now I can't pick any one over the other. But I can pick the exact moment in his 6th Symphony that sends chills down my spine. 38 measures from the end of the fifth movement, "Shepard's song-Allegretto", in the middle of the final climactic fanfare comes a chord that completely sends the music into the stratosphere...a glorious Fmaj/sus9 chord that punches you in the gut and sends chills up your spine and tears into your eyes. The basses and trombones play the root...a low F, while the other instruments voice A, Eb, C and G. The violins, up high, hammer the G, which is the dissonant voice, and the horns hit an A, which is only a half step away from the G the violins are playing and BAM, as Saint-Saens said above, the devil is unchained. It is THE truly singular moment in the symphony. This dissonance quickly resolves when the violins take a step down to F, and we all come back to earth a bit.
Saint-Saens noted further, "In the Sixteenth Century, it was not regarded as admissible at all, for one hears the two notes si and fa simultaneously and this seems intolerable to the ear." (fa refers to the fourth note up from do, and si in French is the ti we know and love, and is the 7th note up from do.) Played together, the si and the do clash dramatically. The tension of dissonance creates drama, tension and heightened expectations. The resolution of the dissonance brings peace and relief....at least that's the idea.
Here is a great version of the final movement of Beethoven's Symphony no. 6. The big moment I've just described happens exactly at the 8:00 minute mark. (the climactic phrase starts at 7:44). This is the Chicago Symphony conducted by Sir George Solti. (Sorry about the advertisement before it starts).

George Frideric Handel pimps for AT&T

"God Save the King," is the most famous lyric from George Frideric Handel's Coronation Anthem  Zadok the Priest. Many, if not most of you, have likely heard at least that section of this great work composed in 1727 for the Coronation of King George II. Handel wrote four such anthems for the occasion, the others being The King Shall Rejoice, My Heart is Inditing, and Let Thy Hand Be Strengthened.
The creative minds at BBDO Advertising chose Zadok as the music for their recent commercial for AT&T and Direc TV's All In One Plan. Steve Carell provides the narration. Check it out:

This is such an incredible work. The introductory phrase pulses and builds from a quiet beginning to a joyous outpouring of beauty with the entrance of the chorus, punctuated by the timpani drum.
You can't hear the lyrics in the TV spot, but they are:

Zadok the Priest and Nathan the Prophet anointed Solomon King.
And all the people rejoiced, and said:
God Save the King! Long Live the King!
May the King live for ever.
Amen. Amen. Alleluia.

I don't see any connection between Handel and AT&T's All In On Plan....or Steve Carell. But who cares. The creators could have picked any music they wanted, but they chose a classical work! I'm OK with that. Most people won't know what piece it is, assuming they even realize there is music behind the narration. But I caught it right away and wanted to share it with you. It's a beautiful piece of music. Here is the full version of it, with lyrics included.

This is my "quiet."

At fifty years of age, I must say that I feel very fortunate to enjoy very good health. I never take that for granted either, or at least I try to remind myself not too. One aspect of my health I pay particularly close attention to is my hearing. As a young person, I enjoyed more than my share of music at high volumes via headphones, car speakers, guitar amplifiers, and symphony orchestras. I am a violinist by formal training, yet I never worried about its effect on my ears. I mean, it's not amplified and playing Bach does not generate a high decibel danger zone.....at least I thought that to be so.
In early January of 2003, I was teaching violin lessons at the Music Arts Institute in Independence, MO. I had a studio there with 5-6 students each week. MAI is in an old elementary school that was transformed into this great program for teaching music. It is a very old building with high ceilings and wood floors. This created a wonderful "echo chamber" that made my violin sound brilliant and alive....and loud. If one of my students did not show for a lesson, I would use that time to practice. I would also stay late to practice, taking advantage of the wonderful acoustics.
The piece I was trying to play at that time was J.S.Bach's Chaconne from his Partita no. 2. Despite the fact that it really was beyond my technical ability, I was determined to play it and I worked on it every chance I got. It is one of the greatest works of art every created, in my humble opinion, and the fact that I could play it at all gave me enormous satisfaction.
One reason the Chaconne is so difficult to play is its use of chords.....lots of them...which on a non-fretted instrument like the violin is very hard for most of us to play. I worked so hard on this piece and spent a lot of time trying to stick the chord passages.
One evening when I stopped practicing and started putting my violin in its case, I noticed a high-pitched ringing in my right ear. It was a very high, super-sonic tone...constant and very noticeable. No matter how I turned my head, or what I did, it stayed there. I didn't notice it as much in the car on the way home because of the noise of the car itself and the music on the radio. But when I put my head on the pillow that night, it was there....loud and clear. I was very frustrated that it had not gone away. And I was also alarmed because it was so annoying. I went to see an ear doctor. My hearing checked out fine, but he told me I had tinnitus. I had heard of tinnitus and hoped I would never have it...but now I did. He recommended that I use earplugs for any sounds louder than a vacuum cleaner. I read everything I could find about it. I learned about many famous people who suffered from tinnitus, including Beethoven, Some of my friends and family have it too. Any loud noises or trauma can cause it, not just music. Firearms are particularly damaging.
In time, I began to learn to live with it. It has became part of my "normal". It has become part of my "quiet".
I wear earplugs when I play the violin now. I wear them when I am in loud places, including restaurants, my son's swim meets, movie theaters and Royal's games. I am mindful of volume when I listen to music. I do everything I can to be smart about it.
And in a weird way, I am forever connected to Bach now....which is certainly not a bad thing either.
Here is a stunning performance of Bach's Chaconne played by Maxim Vengerov.