The George Clooney movie. Just finished watching it.
In short, his character is sharp, very sure of himself. He builds rifles-utterly precise, completely confident in his work, silent yet seasoned from years of craftsmanship. This sense of accomplishment, this ease of accuracy is something I've been thinking about recently. The time spent, the months, years racked to reach the point where your craft becomes second nature yet you still sacrifice moments of minute details. It's fascinating.
I wonder about the mental process, specifically what someone thinks about when they're going through the motions of a craft, a job, for the umpteenth time. Do they think about the previous times they've done the same thing? The opportunities for error? For perfection?
I'd like to think it's some cohesion of routine and fascination. Something between sifting through the motions and relishing the moment, static and dynamic. The potential (Guess what?) and the resolution (I know.).
Then again, this conclusion is a moment, a singular moment only attainable after an eternity of preparation. I'd like to call this preparation the process. And the process is really what's fascination about it all.
Friday, December 31, 2010
Thursday, October 28, 2010
this is how i spend my time
So, I just finished watching the last season of Lost. I never wanted to be the kind of person who devotes themselves to a tv show, jonesing to watch the entire series (Scrubs and House don't count...they're educational), but that sort of happened with Lost.
I didn't care about the relationships, how Kate jumped between Jack and Sawyer back and forth and back and...I wasn't really drawn in by the mythology either; once you have a black smoke monster killing people, seeing polar bears on a tropical island doesn't seem like a big deal. Honestly, if I had to watch the show on tv, waiting week after week for what happens next, in all likelihood, I would have dropped the show long ago.
I've (obviously) been watching the show on DVD, so I make my way through each season as I'd like. The narrative stays fresher, connections are easier to make, and the ability to rewind helps dissect scenes to see what the creators really intended for the storyline (bonus: no commercials).
I think that's what got me: the storyline. The arc. Even when the show became a bit self-indulgent, the pool for the "making it up as they go along" crowd, there was a direction. In retrospect, it's a difficult series to get through: making the connections, finding significance in the little bits here and there and how they reflect/add up to the end of the story.
It takes an attention span to wade your way through it. I feel like a lot of social media reflects the opposite of this. Everything is so instant, simultaneous, direct and un-apologetically in-your-face. There were moments when Lost was as loud and as obvious as fireworks, and there were moments when it was slow and took time to accept. Nevertheless, there always was a continuing narrative, a story that required an attention span long enough to remember names and emotions, faces and events. Sure, it's pop culture, ripe for parody and criticism, but in a time of Jersey Shore and that John and Kate bullshit, it was one of the best we had going.
I didn't care about the relationships, how Kate jumped between Jack and Sawyer back and forth and back and...I wasn't really drawn in by the mythology either; once you have a black smoke monster killing people, seeing polar bears on a tropical island doesn't seem like a big deal. Honestly, if I had to watch the show on tv, waiting week after week for what happens next, in all likelihood, I would have dropped the show long ago.
I've (obviously) been watching the show on DVD, so I make my way through each season as I'd like. The narrative stays fresher, connections are easier to make, and the ability to rewind helps dissect scenes to see what the creators really intended for the storyline (bonus: no commercials).
I think that's what got me: the storyline. The arc. Even when the show became a bit self-indulgent, the pool for the "making it up as they go along" crowd, there was a direction. In retrospect, it's a difficult series to get through: making the connections, finding significance in the little bits here and there and how they reflect/add up to the end of the story.
It takes an attention span to wade your way through it. I feel like a lot of social media reflects the opposite of this. Everything is so instant, simultaneous, direct and un-apologetically in-your-face. There were moments when Lost was as loud and as obvious as fireworks, and there were moments when it was slow and took time to accept. Nevertheless, there always was a continuing narrative, a story that required an attention span long enough to remember names and emotions, faces and events. Sure, it's pop culture, ripe for parody and criticism, but in a time of Jersey Shore and that John and Kate bullshit, it was one of the best we had going.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
the social network
The entire time I was watching this movie I was thinking about the monster Facebook has become.
True, Zuckerberg may have stolen ideas to put it all together, but the fact is this thing, this website that literally has changed the way society sees socializing, was put together on a few laptops in a dorm room. This worldwide revolution and all the controversies, lawsuits and mania that followed all stems from a few kids screwing around in their college dorm. Everything stemmed from an simple idea that came from a few college kids.
Kind of makes you think.
True, Zuckerberg may have stolen ideas to put it all together, but the fact is this thing, this website that literally has changed the way society sees socializing, was put together on a few laptops in a dorm room. This worldwide revolution and all the controversies, lawsuits and mania that followed all stems from a few kids screwing around in their college dorm. Everything stemmed from an simple idea that came from a few college kids.
Kind of makes you think.
Friday, September 17, 2010
unlike the indiana jones type
I saw this play about a month or so ago called "Six Guitars". It was a one man show, and the actor played six different characters, each of whom played a different style of guitar (jazz, metal, country, etc.) One of his characters was a classical guitarist (Spanish, at that), and this character tended to talk in grand metaphors, throwing out something abstract and humorous to the audience, then justifying it in a long-winded explanation. Entertaining, but valid at the same time.
At one point, he used a metaphor that playing guitar is "like being a snake"...cue dramatic pause, wait until the laughter dies down. His justification was that, as a guitarist, you continually make discoveries and have epiphanies about your playing and your view on music. Each new discovery, no matter how small or seemingly minor, if applied properly, can get you thinking about what you know and how it applies to your musicianship. Essentially, you shed your skin and take on a new coat. Maybe it's a whisper of a different hue, maybe its a noticeably different shade, or maybe now you're covered in tattoos. No matter what, things are different.
I just think that's kind of neat.
At one point, he used a metaphor that playing guitar is "like being a snake"...cue dramatic pause, wait until the laughter dies down. His justification was that, as a guitarist, you continually make discoveries and have epiphanies about your playing and your view on music. Each new discovery, no matter how small or seemingly minor, if applied properly, can get you thinking about what you know and how it applies to your musicianship. Essentially, you shed your skin and take on a new coat. Maybe it's a whisper of a different hue, maybe its a noticeably different shade, or maybe now you're covered in tattoos. No matter what, things are different.
I just think that's kind of neat.
Friday, September 3, 2010
it's oh so...
Lately I’ve found myself becoming more and more interested in silence. I’m just starting grad school so a sizable amount of my time lingering in the that very same silence has been sitting in new rooms with new people, everyone staring awkwardly at anything and everything except their peers, themselves desperately awaiting the professor to stop by and break up the tension a bit. It’s a bit juvenile, avoiding eye contact the first day, but it’s helped me realize that silence can very well become it’s own entity and swallow up a room. That silence is a beautiful moment, capable of highs and lows and the exact middle where no one’s saying anything because no one knows what to say.
At the same time I think there’s something vital to be said for mastering silence. For about three weeks I sat in on a conducting class, and the one thing that really hit me was the concept of silence in the preparation of music. The college’s new orchestra conductor, an animated yet cool spirit, taught the class. One day, he drove deep the fact that for a musician, a good part of your working and artistic life is spent in silence. You practice so you understand the music, and you perform the music once you’re ready, but that in between is when that silence flexes it’s grip. You contemplate your choices, determine what happens where, how to shape the phrases and how to say something original with words perhaps thousands have spoken before. Of course, you play things a multitude of times, work out the trial and error of every phrase in the expectation, and that is what makes it all come together, but before you can make noise you need to understand exactly what noises you’re making. And for that, you need quiet.
Right now, I feel good with silence. I used to feel like I needed to hear a constant stream of action, that it was the only way to feel I’m doing things worthwhile. Now, I’m actually ok with silence. Silence can be it’s own noise, stir up enough on it’s own. Besides, it gives me time to think.
At the same time I think there’s something vital to be said for mastering silence. For about three weeks I sat in on a conducting class, and the one thing that really hit me was the concept of silence in the preparation of music. The college’s new orchestra conductor, an animated yet cool spirit, taught the class. One day, he drove deep the fact that for a musician, a good part of your working and artistic life is spent in silence. You practice so you understand the music, and you perform the music once you’re ready, but that in between is when that silence flexes it’s grip. You contemplate your choices, determine what happens where, how to shape the phrases and how to say something original with words perhaps thousands have spoken before. Of course, you play things a multitude of times, work out the trial and error of every phrase in the expectation, and that is what makes it all come together, but before you can make noise you need to understand exactly what noises you’re making. And for that, you need quiet.
Right now, I feel good with silence. I used to feel like I needed to hear a constant stream of action, that it was the only way to feel I’m doing things worthwhile. Now, I’m actually ok with silence. Silence can be it’s own noise, stir up enough on it’s own. Besides, it gives me time to think.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
saturday night/sunday morning
Last night I cooked my first legitimate meal in my new apartment. Nothing special-just a stir fry. I've been having a strange time adjusting to this place; not out of regret or uncertainty, just...it didn't feel exactly like I thought it would. It didn't feel like "that place" I'd slowly make my own.
My kitchen is a bit cramped so, naturally, cooking in these new dimensions will require some new maneuvers and counter top space rationing skills. Balancing spices on the coffee maker, knives balanced just right on the rim of the sink for easy access, ingredients tightly assembled like an infantry awaiting orders—nothing new, I suppose, for anyone in a new kitchen who thinks they know what they're doing.
Somewhere between taking notes on how to manage this new space and tossing cuts of chicken and pepper in a pan, something marvelous happened. I cut into an onion. A big onion. Typically, cutting into a small onion in a big kitchen, unless one is prepared, would result in fumes stinging one's eyes and the general facial spasms associated with crying and yawning at the same time. Therefore, cutting a big onion in a small kitchen fucking hurts.
Right after the regret of the fumes came the revelation of the smell. The smell brought me back to my apartment in Milan, helping my Italian roommate cut up vegetables for dinner, the opening bottles of wine, the billiard-crack bubbling of salted water. That time before dinner when everything was just smells and promises made me feel distant and comfortable, that once I got through dinner I would be fully prepared to handle anything (or too full and euphoric to really care). The diced onions, the searing chicken, the oils sweating out their flavors, none of this provides any armor to the next day or the next term paper, the hassle of things breaking or expectations to meet. They provide acceptance and encourage wisdom, the blissful realization that it's all one thing after another, each random and logical consequence following as it may.
I like my kitchen.
My kitchen is a bit cramped so, naturally, cooking in these new dimensions will require some new maneuvers and counter top space rationing skills. Balancing spices on the coffee maker, knives balanced just right on the rim of the sink for easy access, ingredients tightly assembled like an infantry awaiting orders—nothing new, I suppose, for anyone in a new kitchen who thinks they know what they're doing.
Somewhere between taking notes on how to manage this new space and tossing cuts of chicken and pepper in a pan, something marvelous happened. I cut into an onion. A big onion. Typically, cutting into a small onion in a big kitchen, unless one is prepared, would result in fumes stinging one's eyes and the general facial spasms associated with crying and yawning at the same time. Therefore, cutting a big onion in a small kitchen fucking hurts.
Right after the regret of the fumes came the revelation of the smell. The smell brought me back to my apartment in Milan, helping my Italian roommate cut up vegetables for dinner, the opening bottles of wine, the billiard-crack bubbling of salted water. That time before dinner when everything was just smells and promises made me feel distant and comfortable, that once I got through dinner I would be fully prepared to handle anything (or too full and euphoric to really care). The diced onions, the searing chicken, the oils sweating out their flavors, none of this provides any armor to the next day or the next term paper, the hassle of things breaking or expectations to meet. They provide acceptance and encourage wisdom, the blissful realization that it's all one thing after another, each random and logical consequence following as it may.
I like my kitchen.
Monday, August 16, 2010
lefsetz seems cool with first drafts, so i will be, too.
My head is full of useless information, useless in that it doesn’t pertain to anything dire to the inner or outer workings of my everyday life. I can completely get by and live a happy, full and (preferably) meaning existence without the ability to quote entire bits of Eddie Izzard’s “Dressed to Kill”…but I can do it. No one really cares about the conflict between classical guitar titans Andres Segovia and Agustin Barrios, but I’m still as fascinated with it today as I was when I first heard the two didn’t get along so swimmingly. I can dance around the social implications of guitar neck widths, how Kerouac’s contradictions fed his mystique and Debussy’s yin/yang nature, and I can virtually guarantee that no one else cares. No one signing paychecks in my future, anyway.
It’s this kind of information that means nothing and everything. It doesn’t indicate work aptitude or ___, but it does indicate a pulse. I’ve been thinking lately that if you’ve never been fascinated with anything in your life, truly and unapologetically fascinated, you are damn boring. If you wake up, do what you need to do, go to bed and repeat without variation you’re probably the same kind of person who claps on one and three, content to a bland bread and water existence devoid of any resonating color or tone.
You’re also probably terrible in bed.
And it’s entirely your own damn fault.
There’s no intrinsic human need to like anything. It’s not essential to our development as a species, but it is sort of really, really important to how we define ourselves. It may be nothing more than the facts and arguments we can spout off at a bar anytime past the witching hour, but it shows a sign of life. True, there’s a consequence of overdose (i.e. watch Zooey Deschanel in any movie), but even then it’s an overload of personality, and I’d rather be bombarded with a million different shades than suffer through the monotony of a static grey.
Be crazy. Be conflicted and complicated. It’s far more fun than boring.
It’s this kind of information that means nothing and everything. It doesn’t indicate work aptitude or ___, but it does indicate a pulse. I’ve been thinking lately that if you’ve never been fascinated with anything in your life, truly and unapologetically fascinated, you are damn boring. If you wake up, do what you need to do, go to bed and repeat without variation you’re probably the same kind of person who claps on one and three, content to a bland bread and water existence devoid of any resonating color or tone.
You’re also probably terrible in bed.
And it’s entirely your own damn fault.
There’s no intrinsic human need to like anything. It’s not essential to our development as a species, but it is sort of really, really important to how we define ourselves. It may be nothing more than the facts and arguments we can spout off at a bar anytime past the witching hour, but it shows a sign of life. True, there’s a consequence of overdose (i.e. watch Zooey Deschanel in any movie), but even then it’s an overload of personality, and I’d rather be bombarded with a million different shades than suffer through the monotony of a static grey.
Be crazy. Be conflicted and complicated. It’s far more fun than boring.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
nick hornby is grand, just grand
I’m at one of my favorite places with two of my favorite things. I’m at a coffeehouse with a book and an espresso. I planned to come here, to this coffeehouse, to read this book while drinking this espresso. It’s a simple duo of actions in a setting I’ve engaged in and valued for years. Except, right now, I don’t want to read this book. Instead, I’m typing on my computer.
Backtrack.
A few weeks ago I watched I’m Not There, the movie based off of Bob Dylan’s life/songs/mythology. The plot of the movie jumps around six different vignettes, each one featuring a different actor playing a figure or a theme derived from the grand spirit of what enthusiasts and historians consider the Bob Dylan. Each one is different, lives a different life, tells a different story, but it’s all Dylan.
In a way, it’s kind of like the different lives we have, separate segments telling the story of the same person. Who you were in high school is different from who you were in college, the you with the first post-college job, the restless period you might have, all the way up to you now, the you who likely won’t be the same person you’ll be in three years. You have different goals, different values, opposing outlooks, separate ideas…but in a way I guess you are the same person. Who you inherently are never changes; you just lead different lives from here to there, dropping off your old life for the new one, hoping it will hold out until the next one comes along.
The thing you occasionally do is look back on your past lives as if you just bit a lemon. You sometimes cringe when you think about your old clothes, how you cooked, the music you listened to, the things you’d laugh at in another person today. Then again, you look also look at your past lives as what you knew and experienced, the things you learned and how you interpreted them, the culmination of your “everything” of that day and how it made you you.
Back to now. I’m not reading my book. I’m not reading it because I don’t want to. I’m not reading it because I know it’s too loud here for me to really appreciate and fully grasp what’s going on. A few years ago I would have soldered on, likely missing bits here and there while I subconsciously picked up on the conversations and clanking plates around me. Today, I know I can’t really do it and enjoy it. So, I turn on my computer and type. It’s what I’ve learned.
Backtrack.
A few weeks ago I watched I’m Not There, the movie based off of Bob Dylan’s life/songs/mythology. The plot of the movie jumps around six different vignettes, each one featuring a different actor playing a figure or a theme derived from the grand spirit of what enthusiasts and historians consider the Bob Dylan. Each one is different, lives a different life, tells a different story, but it’s all Dylan.
In a way, it’s kind of like the different lives we have, separate segments telling the story of the same person. Who you were in high school is different from who you were in college, the you with the first post-college job, the restless period you might have, all the way up to you now, the you who likely won’t be the same person you’ll be in three years. You have different goals, different values, opposing outlooks, separate ideas…but in a way I guess you are the same person. Who you inherently are never changes; you just lead different lives from here to there, dropping off your old life for the new one, hoping it will hold out until the next one comes along.
The thing you occasionally do is look back on your past lives as if you just bit a lemon. You sometimes cringe when you think about your old clothes, how you cooked, the music you listened to, the things you’d laugh at in another person today. Then again, you look also look at your past lives as what you knew and experienced, the things you learned and how you interpreted them, the culmination of your “everything” of that day and how it made you you.
Back to now. I’m not reading my book. I’m not reading it because I don’t want to. I’m not reading it because I know it’s too loud here for me to really appreciate and fully grasp what’s going on. A few years ago I would have soldered on, likely missing bits here and there while I subconsciously picked up on the conversations and clanking plates around me. Today, I know I can’t really do it and enjoy it. So, I turn on my computer and type. It’s what I’ve learned.
Saturday, May 15, 2010
thoughts derived while apartment hunting
-Is it normal to visit another college, particularly one you’ll soon attend, and see people who look identical to “that one guy/girl” you knew at your own/past college?
-Damn it all, I’m really getting into Country Music. Country Music should always be capitalized because it can be so damn fun. I guess it really is acceptable in some (southern) cultures to have whiskey for breakfast.
-I will absolutely, without reservation, take hot and humid weather over snow and bone-chilling temperatures any day.
-The longest, most difficult path to a new friendship is through a bruised ego. The quickest is owning a puppy.
-I fear that airlines that offer wi-fi midflight are a coming sign of the apocalypse.
-Lugging a washer and dryer set up three flights of stairs seems like an activity reserved for a certain circle of hell.
-“No rest for the wicked” truly is a lesson for the quick-witted teenage survivors in any horror movie, particularly for the moment at the end when they’re gazing in awe at the monster they’ve supposedly just slain. Trust me, it’s just a fucked up game of peek-a-boo. Best be runnin’.
-I get bored on airplanes. That last bit explains that nicely.
-Damn it all, I’m really getting into Country Music. Country Music should always be capitalized because it can be so damn fun. I guess it really is acceptable in some (southern) cultures to have whiskey for breakfast.
-I will absolutely, without reservation, take hot and humid weather over snow and bone-chilling temperatures any day.
-The longest, most difficult path to a new friendship is through a bruised ego. The quickest is owning a puppy.
-I fear that airlines that offer wi-fi midflight are a coming sign of the apocalypse.
-Lugging a washer and dryer set up three flights of stairs seems like an activity reserved for a certain circle of hell.
-“No rest for the wicked” truly is a lesson for the quick-witted teenage survivors in any horror movie, particularly for the moment at the end when they’re gazing in awe at the monster they’ve supposedly just slain. Trust me, it’s just a fucked up game of peek-a-boo. Best be runnin’.
-I get bored on airplanes. That last bit explains that nicely.
Monday, May 3, 2010
monday
It rained this morning. It rained this morning and I'm at Java's, drinking coffee, reading travel blogs and cracking open a new book. Around 11 it got better and the sun came out; the inside of my car is an oven but the air is still cool and comfortable for the most part.
This new book takes place in Vietnam, and between that and the travel blogs I'm feeling this feeling somewhere between "you're missing out on something big" and "what's the difference between wasting time and spending it?"
I'm restless. Last year I was on the Noordam, in Europe, in Spain and Italy and everywhere I swore I'd see with the job. This realization was a cold slap a few weeks ago when I looked at a calendar and realized that exactly one year ago today I was in Lisbon with the elegant sidewalk designs and bandoneon players on the street. I know that I'm spoiled in that sense, but it is what it is, and I'm grateful and unapologetic about it. I'd give anything to peer down that one corner in Barcelona or go back to that one place in Mallorca. I'd get as lost as I could in Santorini and climb that fucking monster hill again for that restaurant in Florence.
But, really, I'm debating the difference between wasting time and spending it.
This new book takes place in Vietnam, and between that and the travel blogs I'm feeling this feeling somewhere between "you're missing out on something big" and "what's the difference between wasting time and spending it?"
I'm restless. Last year I was on the Noordam, in Europe, in Spain and Italy and everywhere I swore I'd see with the job. This realization was a cold slap a few weeks ago when I looked at a calendar and realized that exactly one year ago today I was in Lisbon with the elegant sidewalk designs and bandoneon players on the street. I know that I'm spoiled in that sense, but it is what it is, and I'm grateful and unapologetic about it. I'd give anything to peer down that one corner in Barcelona or go back to that one place in Mallorca. I'd get as lost as I could in Santorini and climb that fucking monster hill again for that restaurant in Florence.
But, really, I'm debating the difference between wasting time and spending it.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
ka-boom.
Last night I knocked over a stack of books. I do this often; I try not to, but it happens. It's usually an accumulation of things I've read and set aside. I tell myself I'll put it on a shelf, but it gets hidden by the next thing I've read, then obscured by something I look at once, they buried by two books I just bought, all the way into becoming a base to my mountain of procrastination. Happens.
Somewhere in this stack was a songbook for Lalo. Lalo is a vibe player; she's modern, multi-influenced, chaotic, childish, organic, sexy and cohesive all at once, multiple facets claiming dominance at random intervals. I saw her at the Rochester Jazz Festival a few years ago and she struck me as the most original thing I've heard in a long time. She was my favorite musical paradox: someone quiet and unassuming who can completely tear the living Christ out of their instrument. Plus, she's pretty cute.
So, she was selling a songbook and I picked one up. I wanted to arrange some of her stuff for guitar but, somewhere between sophomore and junior year, the book got lost in another stack waiting to get toppled over. Last night I found it, and every promise about what I wanted to do but never got to awoke to stare me in the face.
I know that making promises to yourself then forgetting about them is a stereotype of my generation. Still...they come back to haunt you one way or another.
Somewhere in this stack was a songbook for Lalo. Lalo is a vibe player; she's modern, multi-influenced, chaotic, childish, organic, sexy and cohesive all at once, multiple facets claiming dominance at random intervals. I saw her at the Rochester Jazz Festival a few years ago and she struck me as the most original thing I've heard in a long time. She was my favorite musical paradox: someone quiet and unassuming who can completely tear the living Christ out of their instrument. Plus, she's pretty cute.
So, she was selling a songbook and I picked one up. I wanted to arrange some of her stuff for guitar but, somewhere between sophomore and junior year, the book got lost in another stack waiting to get toppled over. Last night I found it, and every promise about what I wanted to do but never got to awoke to stare me in the face.
I know that making promises to yourself then forgetting about them is a stereotype of my generation. Still...they come back to haunt you one way or another.
Friday, April 2, 2010
life lesson: accepted
It doesn't matter how good I am at guitar right now; how many pieces I can pull off flawlessly from memory or how clean my scales are.
All it takes is a creative half hour on youtube to discover I know nothing compared to what's out there.
Which is cool, because it means I have that much more to learn.
All it takes is a creative half hour on youtube to discover I know nothing compared to what's out there.
Which is cool, because it means I have that much more to learn.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
"so many nouns to verb..."
The Rest is Noise, the first book from New Yorker music critic Alex Ross, is an absolute masterpiece of music nerdom. Noise details the directions and deviations taken by classical composers since the turn of the last century, but Ross’ debut could be mistaken as a bizarre form of fiction with how personal and desperate the players stood between themselves and society. Ross makes the case that classical music born in the twentieth century is inherently tied to what was happening politically and culturally; true of any era, any genre, but Ross lays out his chapters like a casual history lesson, each topic, composer and controversy flowing unblemished. Noise is nothing if not the who/what/where/when/why/(how) of every significant movement and notion of what’s called “contemporary classical,” an impeccably detailed narrative for anyone who salivates at the thought of Stravinsky and Schoenberg trading blows over the future of music.
In short, I love this book.
Even if the Germans are a bit particular.
For the uninitiated, Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg played a major role in maiming tonality in the twentieth century. Schoenberg developed a method of writing that involved ordering pitches of music in a codified form which determined the course of the composition. He impaled tonality on his 12-tone spike and quickly became the headmaster of the Second Viennese school, leading Berg, Webern and, eventually, countless German and Austrian composers towards the notion of finding schematics (key word) outside of tonal centers to write music. This became a trend - chaotic music for the chaotic times of post-WWII Germany - and advanced to a point where composers across the world indulged in a new idea: notes and phrases that don’t make sense actually couldn’t be any other way.
From there, countless young composers, mostly German, accepted this idea as the new gospel. It was kind of a hipper than thou vibe – you’re not acceptable unless your stuff is edgy. Literally. Festivals and collectives developed solely to push music to its limits, then break them. Looking back was shameful.
Again, particular.
Music as an intellectual exercise. Music as a battlefield. It’s fascinating, really. Everything progresses, everything changes, and an art form that can span from charming folk tales to aural murder is destined for infinite variations. Still, I think there’s a fine line between “music” and a “neat idea.” John Cage wrote 4’33” to expose silence as music itself. Pierre Boulez developed total serialism and confined melody, harmony and rhythm to preset grids – music as math.
Neat ideas, really. Ground breaking stuff. Maybe a little/quite a bit masturbatory, but enough to make you go “huh” in a good way. Maybe it doesn’t always work. Maybe it never really works in that sense. But interesting ideas nonetheless.
Exactly – ideas. There’s a difference between “that’s cool” and “I’d listen to that.” Building entire repertoires based on vigorously denouncing Mozart and formal structure and key centers seems like Lenny Bruce after the obscenity trials: hammering out the same theme that wasn’t strong enough to sustain in the first place.
On a complete 180, I went to see John Mayer Saturday night. His new album is his love/relationship album, no question. He’s a heartthrob, pursued by legions of fairer sex fans. I didn’t know what mode he’d be in that night: John the rock star, John the modern-day troubadour, John the “Body is a Wonderland” singer (we all make mistakes).
Honestly, he was, and he’ll always be, the nerd who loves playing guitar that did right.
Everything about the show fit. Mayer was charming between songs. He opened things up to show how killer his band is. And, most importantly, he made the guitar his bitch.
The show felt good. Crowd, venue, everything else that comes with the show didn’t matter. Mayer did exactly what he’s supposed to do. He made the music work.
It fit. It felt good. It worked.
Schoenberg, Webern, Boulez, etc. – they all deserve their praise for pulling out revolutionary cards and forcing modern music to face progress for what it is, curious or ugly. Still, sometimes it just needs to work.
However, a brilliant guitar solo can trump everything else once in a while. Sorry, that’s just how the world works.
--
Seriously though, everyone should buy The Rest is Noise. It defines “brilliant.” Alex Ross deserves sainthood for this.
In short, I love this book.
Even if the Germans are a bit particular.
For the uninitiated, Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg played a major role in maiming tonality in the twentieth century. Schoenberg developed a method of writing that involved ordering pitches of music in a codified form which determined the course of the composition. He impaled tonality on his 12-tone spike and quickly became the headmaster of the Second Viennese school, leading Berg, Webern and, eventually, countless German and Austrian composers towards the notion of finding schematics (key word) outside of tonal centers to write music. This became a trend - chaotic music for the chaotic times of post-WWII Germany - and advanced to a point where composers across the world indulged in a new idea: notes and phrases that don’t make sense actually couldn’t be any other way.
From there, countless young composers, mostly German, accepted this idea as the new gospel. It was kind of a hipper than thou vibe – you’re not acceptable unless your stuff is edgy. Literally. Festivals and collectives developed solely to push music to its limits, then break them. Looking back was shameful.
Again, particular.
Music as an intellectual exercise. Music as a battlefield. It’s fascinating, really. Everything progresses, everything changes, and an art form that can span from charming folk tales to aural murder is destined for infinite variations. Still, I think there’s a fine line between “music” and a “neat idea.” John Cage wrote 4’33” to expose silence as music itself. Pierre Boulez developed total serialism and confined melody, harmony and rhythm to preset grids – music as math.
Neat ideas, really. Ground breaking stuff. Maybe a little/quite a bit masturbatory, but enough to make you go “huh” in a good way. Maybe it doesn’t always work. Maybe it never really works in that sense. But interesting ideas nonetheless.
Exactly – ideas. There’s a difference between “that’s cool” and “I’d listen to that.” Building entire repertoires based on vigorously denouncing Mozart and formal structure and key centers seems like Lenny Bruce after the obscenity trials: hammering out the same theme that wasn’t strong enough to sustain in the first place.
On a complete 180, I went to see John Mayer Saturday night. His new album is his love/relationship album, no question. He’s a heartthrob, pursued by legions of fairer sex fans. I didn’t know what mode he’d be in that night: John the rock star, John the modern-day troubadour, John the “Body is a Wonderland” singer (we all make mistakes).
Honestly, he was, and he’ll always be, the nerd who loves playing guitar that did right.
Everything about the show fit. Mayer was charming between songs. He opened things up to show how killer his band is. And, most importantly, he made the guitar his bitch.
The show felt good. Crowd, venue, everything else that comes with the show didn’t matter. Mayer did exactly what he’s supposed to do. He made the music work.
It fit. It felt good. It worked.
Schoenberg, Webern, Boulez, etc. – they all deserve their praise for pulling out revolutionary cards and forcing modern music to face progress for what it is, curious or ugly. Still, sometimes it just needs to work.
However, a brilliant guitar solo can trump everything else once in a while. Sorry, that’s just how the world works.
--
Seriously though, everyone should buy The Rest is Noise. It defines “brilliant.” Alex Ross deserves sainthood for this.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
etc. etc. etc.
I've been reading the blogs of this guy-Bob Lefsetz. He writes about music...inevitably. He'll start off writing about television, politics, business, the iPad-anything, really-but he'll always end up circling back around to making some point about music. Sometimes he'll use specific examples, sometimes he'll just drop vague implications, but there's always something there.
Lefsetz writes like a fan who grew up with (rock) stars in his eyes, but then grew up with a cynical lump in his throat. He's as apt to call out Ticketmaster on their "convenience" charge injustice and bemoan the pitiful state of rock concerts today as he is to champion a real-life Bad Blake and debate the upside to alcoholism and drug addiction to an artist's creative impulses. Occasionally he'll dive deep into something relevant only to those in the great northern yonder (Canadian, he is), but on the whole I can make it through without wikipedia's help.
He's good people.
-
need to listen: new Jamie Cullum
need to read: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
need to watch: House
always House
Lefsetz writes like a fan who grew up with (rock) stars in his eyes, but then grew up with a cynical lump in his throat. He's as apt to call out Ticketmaster on their "convenience" charge injustice and bemoan the pitiful state of rock concerts today as he is to champion a real-life Bad Blake and debate the upside to alcoholism and drug addiction to an artist's creative impulses. Occasionally he'll dive deep into something relevant only to those in the great northern yonder (Canadian, he is), but on the whole I can make it through without wikipedia's help.
He's good people.
-
need to listen: new Jamie Cullum
need to read: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
need to watch: House
always House
Monday, March 22, 2010
again...again...
I’ve always been interested in the way things begin. The first words an author starts a novel with. The first sounds you hear when you listen to a new album. The image that appears after the darkness fades away when a movie begins. When I was little I thought that everything had to meet my approval; the first few moments of any bit of media had to satisfy my need to know exactly what was going to unfold. Everything had to flow along smoothly until the logical conclusion was reached. Anything that I could consider a deviation was a flaw and, however small, soured the experience just a little bit.
That was then. That was when I thought things should glide in a smooth circle, everything fitting gently in the right place. Now, I relish curveballs. There’s still something to be said for following protocol, but I prefer it if the narrative line bends into a curve like a Formula 1, making it but doing so with a collective gasp from the audience, a near-catastrophe sharply averted. Even more so, I love it when I don’t know what the hell’s going on, when I blindly stumble into a new movie or book with only a vague notion after the poster of the cover.
Personally, I think I just like being surprised. Maybe it’s a reaction to my media-saturated brain having grown far too accustomed to perfect authentic cadences and the boy getting the girl. Even if the ending is tried and true I at least want a complete harmonic meltdown at some point in the middle.
I once read a quote that the second time you see something is really the first. First impressions are to introduce and second ones are to clarify. I like that idea. Reading a book the second time around makes it your favorite. A week’s worth of listening to a record tells you what it’s really about. Looking at the things you don’t always look at make the difference between “good” and “brilliant,” “enticing” and “safe.”
I think a bit of confusion is a good thing.
That was then. That was when I thought things should glide in a smooth circle, everything fitting gently in the right place. Now, I relish curveballs. There’s still something to be said for following protocol, but I prefer it if the narrative line bends into a curve like a Formula 1, making it but doing so with a collective gasp from the audience, a near-catastrophe sharply averted. Even more so, I love it when I don’t know what the hell’s going on, when I blindly stumble into a new movie or book with only a vague notion after the poster of the cover.
Personally, I think I just like being surprised. Maybe it’s a reaction to my media-saturated brain having grown far too accustomed to perfect authentic cadences and the boy getting the girl. Even if the ending is tried and true I at least want a complete harmonic meltdown at some point in the middle.
I once read a quote that the second time you see something is really the first. First impressions are to introduce and second ones are to clarify. I like that idea. Reading a book the second time around makes it your favorite. A week’s worth of listening to a record tells you what it’s really about. Looking at the things you don’t always look at make the difference between “good” and “brilliant,” “enticing” and “safe.”
I think a bit of confusion is a good thing.
Monday, February 15, 2010
didn't even make my coffee yet
My back hurts like a complete bastard right now. It hurts because I was trying to bribe Sophie and Emma (my dogs) with hot dogs and dog cookies to stay in place while fashioned baseball hats on their head for a "photo shoot."
Good morning.
Good morning.
Saturday, February 6, 2010
i like cleveland
Objective: do/see/eat something interesting in each of the cities I'm auditioning for grad school in, regardless of how the auditions go.
Friday, January 29, 2010
nothing at all to do with this, but i once met pete best and shook his hand
I first heard of J.D. Salinger much like I first got into guitar—all because of Green Day. On their second album the band wrote a song, “Who Wrote Holden Caulfield?” Their singer, Billie Joe Armstrong, said he wrote the song after reading Catcher in the Rye, a book he read only after dropping out of high school. Naturally, in an effort to do everything I possibly could to emulate my hero, I read Catcher, slowly wading my way through a well-torn copy from the library. I still remember book, how the laminated dust jacket and bulletproof hardcover was almost too much protection for the yellowed and tattered pages it ironically failed to protect from disrespectful readers. I checked that damn thing out twice before I finally finished it, falling down both times because my prepubescent self couldn’t relate to 1950’s teenage angst.
The irony of having to read Catcher again in high school was not lost on me. The state-mandated curriculum required students to read a book about a protagonist, not unlike the students themselves, railing against the phonies who didn’t care or want to understand. I used to pretend that schools assigned the book because it’s a classic and that’s what you do with the classics in high school—you read them. Because they’re classics. Personally, I thought Catcher was thrown in the curriculum blindly because it was successful and stood the test of time rather than for its content. No matter how many papers about symbolism I was forced to write, to me Catcher was about figuring out the world on your own terms, seeing and accepting the ugly but still wanting to hold on to something you still thought true.
Of course, high school is the perfect time to read Catcher in the Rye. The themes of innocence lost and growing up are paramount to high school students as they face reality/college/the last years of mandated school. I always associated Catcher with Green Day and the notion of facing reality on your own terms, of taking on whatever may come with that strip of innocence or whatever you wanted to call it bolted firm over your heart. That idea of holding on to innocence was apparently something Salinger never let go. Being literature’s most famous recluse (held up in a secluded rural cabin in the middle of nowhere) gets people talking. Salinger denied interviews, damned any and all press and sued family members’ who wrote autobiographies about their childhood. It’s one thing to be an enigma, but Salinger’s extent made it obvious he had something he didn’t want to give up, that he didn’t want to give anything more of himself away than he already had with his fiction.
I just read an article that hinted at Salinger’s obsession with young girls, but it clearly stated that it wasn’t sexual but actually more about the innocence they had. Less Lolita and more Marsha (Marsha Marsha!) Brady. The thing is you reach a point where you can’t afford to be innocent anymore. Salinger was, I think it’s safe to say, loony tunes style, bat shit crazy (but that’s ok). Still, I can’t help but think that his nature was part of his desire for innocence. He wanted what was his to be his alone, never to be tainted by leering public eyes. It’s almost as if he fell victim to one of his greatest ideas.
When I was in Los Angeles last week I saw an exhibition of a photographer’s portraits of famous people. He did a photo of Hemmingway, looking far more like a rugged, world-weary seaman than an author. This, the same man who put a gun in his mouth because he couldn’t take the critics.
I don’t know…I guess we’ve all got our secrets.
The irony of having to read Catcher again in high school was not lost on me. The state-mandated curriculum required students to read a book about a protagonist, not unlike the students themselves, railing against the phonies who didn’t care or want to understand. I used to pretend that schools assigned the book because it’s a classic and that’s what you do with the classics in high school—you read them. Because they’re classics. Personally, I thought Catcher was thrown in the curriculum blindly because it was successful and stood the test of time rather than for its content. No matter how many papers about symbolism I was forced to write, to me Catcher was about figuring out the world on your own terms, seeing and accepting the ugly but still wanting to hold on to something you still thought true.
Of course, high school is the perfect time to read Catcher in the Rye. The themes of innocence lost and growing up are paramount to high school students as they face reality/college/the last years of mandated school. I always associated Catcher with Green Day and the notion of facing reality on your own terms, of taking on whatever may come with that strip of innocence or whatever you wanted to call it bolted firm over your heart. That idea of holding on to innocence was apparently something Salinger never let go. Being literature’s most famous recluse (held up in a secluded rural cabin in the middle of nowhere) gets people talking. Salinger denied interviews, damned any and all press and sued family members’ who wrote autobiographies about their childhood. It’s one thing to be an enigma, but Salinger’s extent made it obvious he had something he didn’t want to give up, that he didn’t want to give anything more of himself away than he already had with his fiction.
I just read an article that hinted at Salinger’s obsession with young girls, but it clearly stated that it wasn’t sexual but actually more about the innocence they had. Less Lolita and more Marsha (Marsha Marsha!) Brady. The thing is you reach a point where you can’t afford to be innocent anymore. Salinger was, I think it’s safe to say, loony tunes style, bat shit crazy (but that’s ok). Still, I can’t help but think that his nature was part of his desire for innocence. He wanted what was his to be his alone, never to be tainted by leering public eyes. It’s almost as if he fell victim to one of his greatest ideas.
When I was in Los Angeles last week I saw an exhibition of a photographer’s portraits of famous people. He did a photo of Hemmingway, looking far more like a rugged, world-weary seaman than an author. This, the same man who put a gun in his mouth because he couldn’t take the critics.
I don’t know…I guess we’ve all got our secrets.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
another idea
Part of reading travel books—the essays and stories type, not the guidebook type—means that I’m often confronted with the theme of “leaving.” Not necessarily escaping; unless you’ve literally coated your black and white striped garb with dirt during a daring venture, I feel as if the word escape has been co-opted by cruise line companies and vacation adds, encouraging middle America to “escape” their jobs and lives back home for a short period of time. False—it’s not escaping if you eventually come back. Escaping is a tricky proposition.
Leaving, on the other hand, is more attractive. Leaving takes you away under your own terms but leaves the option of coming back open. You leave school, but you can go back to visit. You leave things for safekeeping precisely so you can come back to get them later. With escaping the implication is once you come back you do so to the same grind, the same routine, your “escape” essentially amounting to a prolonged diversion. With leaving, as well-worn saying imply, things are different, having moved along one way or another while you were away. Even if things haven’t inherently changed since you’ve left you come back with new eyes, understanding things—for better or worse—differently. Leaving isn’t as dramatic as escaping—it’s more casual. Escaping is drastic; leaving is calm.
I just finished reading a book about an Aussie leaving London for Paris for a new job, itself the result of blind, dumb luck and chance. I’m reading a book right now about a twentysometing ditching a Manhattan law firm for Brazil. Both deal with the quarter-life crisis dilemma (just like a midlife crisis but swapping male-pattern baldness for hip clothes), both document the authors absolutely clueless as to what the hell they’re doing, and both have that brilliant epiphany where both authors ruminate that they’d rather wake up near destitute and hung over in their new adopted homeland (which they often do) than suffer another day in the former life they’ve left.
Ladies and gentlemen: the new American Dream.
-
My generation is entering what could quite possibly be the worst time imaginable for work. The economy and the job market are in shambles. CEO’s, the glorified position we once aspired to work ourselves up to be, make headlines in controversy and jail sentences. Business school and MBA graduates are applying for entry-level positions alongside recent lay-offs in their mid-50’s, almost mirrors of the future. Today it’s entirely plausible be asked that time-honored query, “When will you get a job?” and respond with blank eyes, “what jobs?” While not utterly hopeless, times, unquestionable, suck.
Maybe the thing to do is the exact opposite of what we’re expected to do. Maybe we need to leave for a while, leave in our own way then return when the world around us is ready. When, eventually, we’re ready.
Leaving, on the other hand, is more attractive. Leaving takes you away under your own terms but leaves the option of coming back open. You leave school, but you can go back to visit. You leave things for safekeeping precisely so you can come back to get them later. With escaping the implication is once you come back you do so to the same grind, the same routine, your “escape” essentially amounting to a prolonged diversion. With leaving, as well-worn saying imply, things are different, having moved along one way or another while you were away. Even if things haven’t inherently changed since you’ve left you come back with new eyes, understanding things—for better or worse—differently. Leaving isn’t as dramatic as escaping—it’s more casual. Escaping is drastic; leaving is calm.
I just finished reading a book about an Aussie leaving London for Paris for a new job, itself the result of blind, dumb luck and chance. I’m reading a book right now about a twentysometing ditching a Manhattan law firm for Brazil. Both deal with the quarter-life crisis dilemma (just like a midlife crisis but swapping male-pattern baldness for hip clothes), both document the authors absolutely clueless as to what the hell they’re doing, and both have that brilliant epiphany where both authors ruminate that they’d rather wake up near destitute and hung over in their new adopted homeland (which they often do) than suffer another day in the former life they’ve left.
Ladies and gentlemen: the new American Dream.
-
My generation is entering what could quite possibly be the worst time imaginable for work. The economy and the job market are in shambles. CEO’s, the glorified position we once aspired to work ourselves up to be, make headlines in controversy and jail sentences. Business school and MBA graduates are applying for entry-level positions alongside recent lay-offs in their mid-50’s, almost mirrors of the future. Today it’s entirely plausible be asked that time-honored query, “When will you get a job?” and respond with blank eyes, “what jobs?” While not utterly hopeless, times, unquestionable, suck.
Maybe the thing to do is the exact opposite of what we’re expected to do. Maybe we need to leave for a while, leave in our own way then return when the world around us is ready. When, eventually, we’re ready.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
an idea
"We practice to create space. This is true for playing a musical instrument, but applies to everything else as well, I think. Practicing creates familiarity. Familiarity creates intimacy.
When we practice playing a piece of music or a scale, we train our brain by using our body. We scrub those neural pathways by moving our fingers. And that creates space. If moving from this note to that note has been trained and ingrained, we no longer have to think about that move and are free to consider other or additional moves. If moving from point A to point B has become utterly natural, then I have established space between those two points in which I can make additional moves. Or, imagine jumping from a rock to another rock. Once that jump has become easy, we might add a turn, a twist or a salto. In music, we might add a new note, a trill, a tremolo, a vibrato… We have created space (or time) in which to make additional moves – or choose not to! The more natural that jump or that piece of music becomes, the more space we have created. Then we have more time and more choice.
I find it important that the space we have thus created should not necessarily be filled with additional notes as we can use that space to embue the sound with more intent or emotion instead. When we no longer have to work at getting to the next note or musical sound, we can enjoy playing the current note with complete conviction."
-Ottmar Liebert
(stolen from his blog)
When we practice playing a piece of music or a scale, we train our brain by using our body. We scrub those neural pathways by moving our fingers. And that creates space. If moving from this note to that note has been trained and ingrained, we no longer have to think about that move and are free to consider other or additional moves. If moving from point A to point B has become utterly natural, then I have established space between those two points in which I can make additional moves. Or, imagine jumping from a rock to another rock. Once that jump has become easy, we might add a turn, a twist or a salto. In music, we might add a new note, a trill, a tremolo, a vibrato… We have created space (or time) in which to make additional moves – or choose not to! The more natural that jump or that piece of music becomes, the more space we have created. Then we have more time and more choice.
I find it important that the space we have thus created should not necessarily be filled with additional notes as we can use that space to embue the sound with more intent or emotion instead. When we no longer have to work at getting to the next note or musical sound, we can enjoy playing the current note with complete conviction."
-Ottmar Liebert
(stolen from his blog)
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