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Rumpus Book ClubSWINGING MODERN SOUNDS #20: Who’s Afraid of Serious Music?
To reiterate my larger theme: part of what I suppose I mean, here, is that when you school yourself up a little bit in a form that feels recondite or alien to you, it may be possible, even probable, that you are able to see how much beauty and heart there is in it. I was already making the transition into understanding work that is “atonal” or which has or had different and more various tonal centers, in that I was liking, for example, some of Sonic Youth’s darker colors, or some free jazz (Stellar Regions, by John Coltrane, let’s say). I was already making the transition to finding dissonance expressive, if that’s the right way to put it. With attention it’s hard not to conclude that tonality is (while occasionally satisfying) cheap. And traditional tonality of the kind that you hear in the popular song is, in the long run, aesthetically indefensible, and is, it’s true, more conservative than the wild west of an enlarged harmonic landscape. Why do all those pop song melodies always go to the same melodic places? And do the same things? If you really care about music, and you are ignoring everything that is happening among serious composers, then you are participating in the diminishment of the form you affect to love, in the same way as those school superintendants are who are cutting music education from public school programs, thereby diminishing what kids are able to hear. Music needs to be a field of possibilities, in the same way that literature needs to be a field of possibilities, in the same way that visual art needs to be a field of possibilities. The form needs to be able to go where history leads it, even if this happens to be down a byway that, on the surface, is complex and demanding or even forbidding for the casual listener. Especially this is the case if the more seemingly difficult work is, in fact, not as difficult as all that, if, upon reflection, it is in fact full of soul. Because that’s what we’re asking for in the end, correct? Are we not asking that music move us powerfully?
http://therumpus.net/wordpress/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=45138Since this column is meant to concentrate itself on unreleased things, and a generous helping of the most well-known of Rakowski’s piano études are already released, many of them played by the amazing Amy Briggs, a pianist from Chicago, with a wonderfully supple touch, I want to mention, in passing, the excellence of Rakowski’s web site, where there are a lot samples his compositions, for people who want to hear some of the music. But then there is a lot of other stuff, and this other stuff, for me, is completely germane to the music. Not only is there “Davy’s Lexicon,” which has a lot of interesting acronyms for people in need of acronyms, or a history of Rakowski’s work in font design, at which, in the early nineties, he was successful enough that, apparently, they are still selling his font designs, but there is even some of his obsessive cataloguing of anagrams and people whose first and last names have only five letters. And there is a series of scanned images of notes he wrote his mother as a child, such as: “Dear Mummy, I hate you, love David,” and “Dear Mummy, I will not give you anymore kisses before I go to school, love David.” It’s absolutely unfair, here, to quote these without giving the real flavor of the composer’s youthful handwriting, so I will include the link here. These images will stay with you. There’s also a collage of photos of Rakowski from middle and high school, and some articles in the local press about him, and so on. Like the notes to his mom, the clippings are really funny, but they are also arrestingly sad, and Rakowski posts them without any kind of editorial comment at all. Then, best of all, under the title “Buttstix,” and I offer no apology for the locution, are a number of small apothegms, supposed “immutable regulations” of classical composition, that Rakowski, according to him, had shoved up his cantus firmus, during his student years. His creative life, he avers, has involved the removal of these “buttstix,” one at a time, until he arrives at a compositional freedom unfettered by the requirements of the canon. The link is here. As you can see, some of the apothegms are as follows: “Serious music is slow music,” “No smiling,” “Improvisation is not composition,” “Minimalism is bad,” “If amateurs like it, it’s bad,” and, of course, “The Tradition.”
This page is useful to me not only as a fan of Rakowski’s work, or as a passionate amateur listener to “serious” music, but also as a creative person myself. In fact, it’s extremely useful. And in the end this what I take away from Rakowski. He is a teacher, yes, at Brandeis, where I gather his classes are extremely popular (and where he takes Calvin and Hobbes cartoons and rewrites the words in the balloons with notes on counterpoint), and in a way his obsessive need, as a composer, is always to teach, but to teach without compromising what he believes in, but likewise in such a way as to make the difficulty of that work entirely accessible to nearly anyone who is willing to take the time to listen and to learn. This Rakowski model has been effective for me as a writer in the years I have been lucky enough to know Rakowski and to watch him do his thing. That is, he has taught me. You sense that he carries around a great burden, I do not deny this; you sense that there is a lot on his mind that he is not saying (sometimes he reminds me of something that Miles Davis said about Armstrong, that when Armstrong turned off the thousand-watt smile he was one of the saddest people of all), but also that he is made whole by his creativity and by the process of sharing and laying it bare for people who would know more. I think his kind of activity is quantifiable, in some ways. That is, I think that some of “serious” music is mathematics, but that the mathematics is loved here in such a pure way, for its expressive value, that its expressive value is not at all quantitative, but nearly romantic in its genuineness.
So this is what I know about “serious” music, because of an awkward dinner at The MacDowell Colony: that I am not afraid of it, that I like what I like, and some of it I like a great deal, and I am always willing to learn more. For me this is sort of how one ought to be passionate about music. One ought to feel, and one ought to be passionate to learn.
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February 12th, 2010 at 4:18 pm
Thanks for bringing Rakowski to our attention; I hadn’t heard of him. The piano etudes you can hear on YouTube are amazing!
I’m not a music critic per se, but I disagree with you on your choice of term; personally I find the built-in value judgment of “serious” much more obnoxious than the continuing use of “classical” for music that emerges from that tradition. Given that common usage, which has resisted all attempts at alteration over the past fifty years, I think “contemporary classical” is the best, most neutral term for this genre.
The other thing is: why are you of all people buying into the idea that traditional tonality is “aesthetically indefensible,” whether in the long run or in the short? It only is so if you view tonal complexity as inherently superior to (relative) tonal simplicity. Such complexity might be more intellectually challenging in certain ways, even geeky (and as a music geek, I use that word with its most positive connotations) but it’s hardly the only way to make good music.
Those objections aside, this was a great piece and thanks for the introduction to some wonderful new music!
February 12th, 2010 at 5:43 pm
Rick have you listened to any music coming out of places like Angola, Cabo Verde, Guadeloupe, Martinique and Haiti? I think you might like some of it.
February 13th, 2010 at 3:43 am
Hey, you guys, there’s a horrible typo in the piece! Webern! With an “n,” not “Weber.” Sorry about that! There’s always one.
Marco, I am thoroughly excited by many varieties of “indigenous folk music” (and obviously I’m trying to avoid that term “w—- music”), and so why don’t you tell me who you’re thinking about above.
As for preferring “tonal complexity,” of which I am somewhat accused in Jeremy’s note, I am not sure that I do, and that’s why there’s the graph about music needing to be a field of possibilities. What I don’t prefer is “tonal simplicity” for its own sake. Simplicity can be nice. And complexity can be really really excellent, and resisting it because it’s complex is, for me, like saying you’re not going to read William Gaddis because his books are long. Well, they are, but they are also really great and rewarding. I like BOTH the complex and the simple, but I think, today, that “tonal complexity” deserves more attention than it has gotten in the pop music crowd.
February 13th, 2010 at 8:00 am
Webern=fixed!
February 13th, 2010 at 12:45 pm
I agree with Jeremy that “contemporary classical” (with all its wine-glass and white-carpet connotations) is a preferable term to “serious music” (with its “built-in value judgments” and shadow-browed chill). Rakowski’s music takes it origins seriously, but also delights in the freedom and whimsy of the moment—its contemporary playground. To call it “serious music” is too limiting a moniker and impacts its potential appeal. The same holds for Satie and Ives and Stravinsky and many others (even Mozart). Serious, but with a gleam in the eye. On the other hand, I also consider bands like Joy Division and The Mekons and The Fall and Mogwai and even Pavement to be purveyors of serious music. Same with Coltrane, Miles, Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor et al. The word “serious” should neither be pejorative nor sufficient.
Kafka, Mann, Faulkner, Cervantes, Beckett, Dickinson, Shakespeare, Sebald et al—serious writing, but with a gleam in the eye.
Again, thanks for bringing Rakowski to our attention. Nancarrow also just came into my view, and I’m enjoying their similarities (and differences).
PS Rick—would you mind elucidating what your “suggestion” was for Rakowski’s “Pedal to the Metal” etude?
February 13th, 2010 at 4:59 pm
Tim, come on, and I say this with all affection: “contemporary classical” doesn’t remind you of “military intelligence” or “semi-boneless ham,” or “the ownership society?” I agree that “serious” is problematic. I also like “new music.” But I have no trouble with “serious” referring to “classical” as well as “popular.” That’s fine. I think the categories don’t withstand scrutiny anyhow. They are just shorthand. “Contemporary classical” just seems so paradoxical, if not oxymoronic, as to be a tough sell for me.
I can’t remember by suggestion for “Pedal to the Metal.” I would have to ask David. I think the prog rock one is called “Prog Springs Eternal,” if I remember correctly. This might just be a piece for pedalling, right? I think there are a couple different etudes for pedals (since there are three petals, after all). Sometimes David says I helped when I did nothing that I know of, at all, which is the kind of reflected glory that one should never repel.
February 13th, 2010 at 11:07 pm
Rick, did you just call me a semi-boneless ham?
You’re right. “Contemporary Classical” is pitiful (better than “serious”—but still insidiously inadequate). Like “Contemporary Renaissance” or “Contemporary Modernism” would be if we thought we could get away with them. This is just English as its sloppiest, like the lack of a second person plural that could have spared us y’all or youens or youse guys. Classical is a (somewhat) distinct period of music, like Baroque or Romantic. How did it come to be the inclusive term?
Does anyone out there in Rumpus land know if this is also a problem in, say, French or German or Italian? I’m too much of a monoglot (and a quick web search proved fruitless just now). If some other language has a term that includes everything from Palestrina to Steve Reich, can we just adopt it, like we did déjà vu and angst and mise-en-scène?
But, come on, Rick (affection intact): “New Music”? If “New Age Music” didn’t already make that ridiculous, the idea that we’d have to keep calling it “new music” even after it had become “old music” certainly does.
Still, I’ll forgive such logical laziness of any writer who could subsequently offer up this resonance: “…the kind of reflected glory that one should never repel.”
February 14th, 2010 at 7:09 am
Angola: Paulo Flores, Carlos Burity, Carlos Lamartine
Guadeloupe: Kassav (the early stuff from the mid-80′s), Henri Debs, Patrick St. Eloi, Tnaya St. Val
Martinique: Malavoi, Kali, Marie-Jose Alie, Michel Godzom, Marce & Tumpak, DeDe St. Prix, Eric Virgal
Haiti: Beethova Obas, Tabou Combo
Compilations: Hurricane Zouk and Zouk Attack
February 14th, 2010 at 4:51 pm
Tim, guilty as charged on “new music.” It’s inadequate.
Will chase down some of this stuff from Marco. I’m excited to do so, in fact.
February 17th, 2010 at 1:19 pm
The bitch is that much this stuff is out of print, but there’s downloads. If you need any help let me know.
February 17th, 2010 at 7:49 pm
This reminds me of the people I’ve misread at first, and how remembering that first impression from the place of friendship is sort of bewildering and vivid at once; anyway it leaves its mark, somehow makes the connection all the more precious and rich as the years go by. Same is true of books and music that took a few tries to love.
February 19th, 2010 at 11:15 am
Baron Karl Maria Friedrich Earnst Weber(n) 1786-1826. How could that have slipped by the “aging hipster” ? Anyway….nice piece on a dork who grows up to be smart AND funny and not only revels in it all but turns it into a career !
February 19th, 2010 at 11:21 am
oopps…ANTON weber(n)—-Gulp !!!
February 19th, 2010 at 12:41 pm
My 11-month old loves Eric Dolphy’s “Hat and Beard” and my 4-year-old pirouettes to Albert Ayler. I can only imagine the kind of listeners they will be later in life.
I struggled with dissonance and the atonal at first, but as a listener I knew I couldn’t remain stuck in the 19th century. Plus I wanted to hear new sounds. Isn’t that what all of us listeners want?
It’s interesting that you bring up the dread seriousness of the Schoenberg folks. I used to blame it on me being South American, but I could never “feel” their dread seriousness either (except maybe Schnittke’s Concerto Grosso No. 1, although perhaps he doesn’t entirely belong to the dread).
On another note, I am going to hear Luigi Nono’s “La lontananza nostalgica utopica futura” in two weeks!
http://www.sfcmp.org/indexflash.php
February 20th, 2010 at 11:17 am
Cesar, I need to know about some Latin American serious music. Do you suggest the Nono piece you allude to above? Tell me about some stuff you are familiar with from home. I want to hear the new sounds, as you say.
And I agree with your 4 year old about Albert Ayler. It’s so moving. Like deranged hymnody. So far with my soon-to-be-one-year-old daughter we are playing: Duke Ellington, Glenn Miller, Les Paul and Mary Ford, Penguin Cafe Orchestra, and Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass.
February 21st, 2010 at 12:32 am
Nono’s name kept recurring in my readings, and since I seem to approach new music in a free associative style–Ayler and Sun Ra, incidentally, I pursued after reading your posts. I remember thinking after reading one of them that, given where I stand in the death struggle between the plot people and the everything’s permitted people, and given that we know where this sentence’s going, let me skip my obvious stance and say that I felt, in short, that I was missing out. And I was. Deranged hymnody is so right. And Nono I think I read about in Morton Feldman’s collected lectures/interviews. I haven’t heard anything by him but I am incredibly excited to find out. It does sound exciting, no? “In performance, the violinist moves to music stands positioned throughout the audience – including some dummy stands with fake music, so the audience cannot predict where the violinist will go next. In addition to the solo violin, La lontananza includes eight independent tape parts recorded by violinist Gidon Kremer.”
Unfortunately I cannot contribute much about serious Latin American music at the moment. I grew up in an unmusical house. In a drawer we did have the encyclopedia Salvat’s classical cassette series but no one listened to them. In the living room we had an organ but no one played it. Except maybe my grandfather. A glacial rendition of Brazil comes to mind. I didn’t hear the Symphonic Etudes until I was 23. I do hope to contribute an exciting lead hopefully soon.
March 19th, 2010 at 4:37 pm
Rick, thanks so much for this article. I’ve used Davy’s fonts but never heard his music. I must check him out. My wife works at Brandeis and knows him a little. I’ve sent her a link.
As a musician and someone passionately in love with what i like to call “music no one likes”, i deeply appreciate your description of what seems to me the only requirement for getting a handle on this stuff: curiosity and a certain inclination. I find it a little exasperating when talking to folks at concerts/shows/what-have-you when they say “That was interesting, but i don’t think i understood it.” There isn’t a secret message. What’s needed is just some willingness to come to a sort of familiarity. I think.
BTW, i would have caught the Weber(n) typo, i swear. He’s one of my heroes. I can’t really tell from the piece what your take on the Holy Trinity of 12 Tone Music is besides blaming them for the “dread seriousness” of the 20th century modernists, but i urge you to give Webern a closer listen. Sure, he’s smart, but i love his music for what i hear as achingly sad beauty. And it’s other-worldliness. Just listen to the Symphony, Op. 21, keeping in mind that he was a huge devotee of Mahler.
Anyway, regarding whatcha call this stuff? Music.
Thanks again.
March 19th, 2010 at 4:42 pm
Shit–typo: “it’s [sic] other-worldliness”. Ability to edit one’s post would be great!
April 27th, 2010 at 2:19 pm
Steve, I confess I have grown closer to the “holy trinity” over the years, and find much of it quite lovely, as you say. Although it’s still not where I turn first. I will chase down the Webern piece you suggest, however, because I am always in need of new stuff to listen to. So thanks for the tip!
November 4th, 2010 at 8:53 pm
Webern was a pimp.