Bill Monroe - old time bluegrass and rap

I've been listening to some Bill Monroe recordings lately. In case you don't know, Bill Monroe was one of the founders of 'bluegrass' style. In fact, the style is named after his band, "Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys". In particular, I'm enjoying "Bean Blossom" (a live recording of a music festival he started), and "I Saw the Light" (a collection of gospel quartet songs.)

I'm not sure I can explain what appeals to me about roots and folk music. I work in commercial theatre music. I grew up on classical music and 60's rock. But there's something about Taj Mahal, Janis Ian, Patty Griffin and now Bill Monroe that speaks to me. I'm aware of the musical simplicity - but that doesn't get in my way. There's a sense of truthfulness (or 'truthiness' as Stephen Colbert says) that makes it land in some way. In my daily life, I certainly don't share the blues experience - but the blues take me somewhere different than Sondheim, Mahler and Bach.

Someone recently knocked me for wanting to listen more to WFUV (a folk and folk-rock station) than WFMU (a wonderfully eclectic college station that plays anything.) This person knocked WFUV for playing 'that folky shit'. But as I thought about it, I realized that i was more interested in music based on song structures than music based on grooves and oddity. There's plenty of great stuff on WFMU, and plenty that I don't like on WFUV. But I prefer to hear the struggles of song writers to that of musicians trying to shock or surprise me with novelty. (Old Fuddy Dud Alert - here it comes ...) And a lot of music today is built on groove and words - melody and harmony taking a back seat. That doesn't work for me in any kind of music.

But WHY has that occurred? I know rap and hip-hop were cultural developments as well musical ones ... but why the strong move towards groove over everything else? And the persistence of that tendency for a few decades now. We don't seem to be dancing as much as we used to (that could be my age speaking) - so the predominance of groove doesn't seem to be a dance thing. Yes, words that are done in a rap style have a different approach to communication than sung lyrics. But despite the content being so direct, the 'tonal' context seems so limited after a while - it's always the same voice, the same inflection.

This is way off what I wanted to talk about - the appeal of roots music. But maybe for others, the spoken word has that simple directness that I'm finding in roots music.

Or maybe what I hear in hip-hop as a lack of musical gesture is what my father heard when we were playing Jimi Hendrix records in the 60's - for him maybe Hendrix was a lack of organized musical structure and indulgent soloing.

But what is disturbing to me is not the music I don't like ... but the music that seems void of content - music where there's not enough content to hang my displeasure on.

the crystal point

I’m find there’s something called “a crystal point”.

I first look at a number and I start out complaining: “How am I going to do it with so few instruments?” “Why does he make these compositional choices? They seem arbitrary.” “Shouldn’t there be a much more different arrangement?”

Then, I’ll go and procrastinate - torrent a little, a book on tape, a book on Kindle.

Then I’ll come back to the chart and maybe look for a starting synth sound, stare at the screen for a few moments ...

Then it lines up ... a sort of ‘crystal point’: suddenly a few colors in my teeny tiny band match an odd choice of the composer - a synth patch work for a figure here - a woodwind choice is just right for the line there - throw away that vocal doubling - add a fill into the gaping hole there with a fill.

This moment usually happens about 1 am. I often stand up and go right to sleep. Colors and choices don’t disappear from memory like pitches and rhythms do (at least for me.)

Occasionally such a crystallizing moment (is that a more apt phrase?) occurs upon first hearing. Receiving an assignment from a performance as opposed to the printed page presents solutions much more quickly. if the emotional journey of the song is clear, and you’ve become familiar with what your present instrumentation can do ... sometimes all the right choices play out in your head as you are listening. The score page becomes an issue of how well you can execute what is already obvious.

The challenge, of course, is when such a moment of crystallization does NOT occur - and you have to move forward anyway. You want to think that only you can recognize which scores were inspired and which ones just got done. But sometimes, it’s all too obvious.

lyrics, Debussy, Kandinsky and throbbing

I saw a theatrical piece tonight that didn't work. A piece done on a symphonic scale with beautiful music and orchestrations, but it just washed over me.

The problem was that the characters kept singing what they were feeling - and nothing happened, They didn't 'move' through an emotional process - they just stood there and THROBBED at me. And the music, as beautiful as it was, did not move me because the context of the music's emotions had not been established.

Claude Monet's SunriseBut now I start to wonder - all the non-theatrical music I'm moved by - am I creating the emotional context in my own mind? Or hearing one that the composer is implying in his music?

When I listen to Debussy's "La Mer", I hear more than his capturing the physicality of the sea - I hear his thrill at the feel of ocean spray on his face, his delight at the lighting shimmering on the waves. It's his emotional reaction that causes him to write more than just shimmer and movement - his delight emerges as harmony and melody.

I recently caught the Kandinsky show at the Guggenheim (stick with me for a moment ...) I chose to see the show backwards - and I'm glad I did - I started at the top with the final works and worked my way doKandinsky - Composition VIII - 1923wn. As a result, instead of the exhibition being a biography, it became an analysis of what he was striving for by examining where he came from (as opposed to what he turned to next.) So I wasn't aware of his roots in Russian folk art till the end. I noticed his similarity to Chagall only incidentally through some similar use of color before reaching the end and seeing how they both really started in the same place. But mostly I got to enjoy Kandinsky's use of abstraction without looking for what was being abstracted. That only became an issue as I worked my way backwards.

As a result, the later works seemed to float - geometric elements seemed to float on top of color blotches - black line markings appeared to be improvised comments on the shapes of color below. One painting seemed to be pulled away from the viewer as it fell away into a black field behind it.

Kandinsky - Composition V - 1911But in each painting, there was a context for the abstractions - there seemed to be a dialog between colors, shapes and lines. The dialog was sometimes violent, sometimes serene. But never silent. Each painting was a universe with it's own rules.

It is so hard to look for that kind of process in words, when they're being sung. It is so easy to be swept up in the feeling when there's music present, and leave behind the thought that triggered the feeling. Lyrics appear to us in real time - we need to move with the mind's process, even if it's the million thoughts one has in a few seconds.

Perhaps it is best not to delineate the feelings, but just present the thought process and let the audience 'throb' itself, without doing it for them. Music is such a strong emotional language, it can over-color those thoughts very quickly. Perhaps music should be like Kandinsky's color blotches - coloring the sharp black lines above, while being cut themselves into pieces that fall away.

 

We need to do something better than a "Secretary of the Arts"

Has anyone stopped to ask what might be good about a "Secretary of the Arts"? I can't see anything beneficial.

Do we need more support for the arts? Definitely for non-profit arts institutions. We need more assistance for regional theaters, and museums and orchestras in smaller cities. Maybe some tax breaks for commercial arts in certain economically troubled areas. (New York City's film office brought a lot of of production work to the city during the city's financial crisis in the late 70's.) Does this kind of support require a cabinet position? I don't think it does. Maybe an Undersecretary of Media and Arts in the Commerce Department.

More importantly we need better arts education in elementary schools. If children are taught to sing, play an instrument, perform in a play, dance and to draw a picture, they are more likely to appreciate the arts as adults. They are more likely to attend the theater, a concert, a museum. They are more likely to bring their own children to the arts to share in their passion.

Do we need a Secretary of the Arts to increase funding for arts education? Maybe an Undersecretary for Arts Education in the Education Department might be appropriate.

But what exactly would a Secretary of Arts deal with - would he oversee the commercial arts (Hollywood, Broadway, the recording industry?) Or the 'fine arts’ only (symphonies, museums, opera and dance companies)? What would be his priority when commercial and fine arts come into conflict?

Would he only deal with giving out support money (like the present National Endowment) or would he also be involved with copyright policy and policing piracy? Would his/her job be to protect the arts industries or to protect the individual artist? Or to protect the consumer of the arts?

Like the present Endowment, an Arts Department would be dictating what is ‘American’ art by what it chose to support. There is no denying the present Endowment sways in the political breeze of whatever administration is in power. Why would a cabinet position be any different?

And while everyone is in the glow of Obama's election and the idea of who he might appoint as a Secretary of the Arts, how about the hypothetical Secretary of Arts appointed by President Palin, eight years from now?

As someone working in the theater, I have seen how helpful government funding can be - the path from Off-Broadway to Broadway is a great example of how government support can produce more jobs, bring more economic benefits to the city and (sometimes) create great theater. But I have also seen government funding used as a form of censorship, frightening producers or museum directors from provocative projects when it’s time to apply for new grants. Moving the arts up to a cabinet position only put the dangers of government funding on a larger stage where politicians are more likely to use it as a medium for their own agendas.

* * * * * * *

In the age of the internet, the arts are in a complete uproar. All assumptions are off - all the paradigms are changing. The internet is also changing the nature of the consumer himself - tastes are changing - musical and visual vocabularies are changing. In such a turbulent time a Secretary of the Arts seems like a quick fix to help preserve some of the institutions that are suffering and disappearing.

But those institutions may have to disappear - or they may have to reinvent themselves as something that better responds to the changed world. Music and theater won’t disappear - but concert halls and Broadway might. Live performances will always occur - but in the future audiences may not even be in the same space.

In this shifting environment, government policy is the last place for the arts to find good ideas.

Instead of a Secretary of the Arts, how about an Arts Lobby, fighting for arts education, support for regional and non-profit institutions, and informing both the politicians and the public how the arts can benefit our society.

How about a Commercial Endowment, where a portion of the taxes normally paid by commercial arts institutions (media companies, movie studios, record companies), get siphoned off directly to the National Endowment to support non-profit institutions.

In the end, I think it’s all about the education - if we expose our children to the arts, they will become hungry for more. Their hunger will find the new forms when they appear.

But first we have to bring our children to the arts in a real, tactile manner. Once you have held an instrument and felt it vibrate from your own manipulation (even for just a few months) you forever hear music differently - you hear it as a musician.

an idle thought about Charles Ives

I've always wondered how Charles Ives plays to non-Americans. As a modernist, I'm sure he's sounds as stark and muscular to a European as he does to me.

But what of the 'Americana' aspect of his music? Ives' use of American hymns and simple folk songs evoke a sense of New England at the dawn of the 20th century - not an idyllic vision, but one where the bucolic greenery mixes with the chaos of a young democracy - outspoken, rough, rude and heartfelt - Whitman's 'barbaric yawp'.

Where Bartok seemed to have taken Hungarian folk music and ingested it whole to become part of his melodic voice, Ives never seems to completely absorb early American music into his voice. There's a ongoing process of synthesizing it all into a style - but the process is never complete - the hymns emerge from the darkness and fade back. The throb of Beethoven's 5th keeps emerging from the Concord Sonata only to be absorbed a few bars later.

It's almost as if Ives heard the simple hymn tune, and felt that all the swirls of atonality were implied by the populace that sang the hymn; he saw a complexity to the American character that joined together the roar of the mob, the untamed cosmos and the voice of quiet belief.