The Mozart Effect

So apparently listening to Mozart won't make you more intelligent. It's not about Mozart, it's about music that you enjoy. So, according to Rauscher, "If you love Pearl Jam, you're going to find a Pearl Jam effect." Oh dear. Too bad for all those parents who played Mozart for their unborn children. Personally, I still think it's a good idea. At least there's a chance that the poor, defenseless baby would grow up with even a shred of musical taste.

Copland "Appalachian Spring"

Since I was on the subject of American composers with the Lou Harrison post, I thought it would be a good time for me to gush about "Appalachian Spring." This is one of my favorite pieces of all time. Top three, easy. I've never listened to Copland as a composer before now, but I'm quickly becoming a great fan. I heard this piece on the radio at my grandfather's house when I was a little girl, and thought it was beautiful (I had good taste even then). The piece has stuck with me all these years. I feel obliged to say that I have attached very fond childhood memories to this piece, which may be a biased reason for why I love it so much.

The piece was originally commissioned by the famous choreographer Martha Graham. It was composed as a ballet, and Copland later rearranged the piece as an orchestral suite. Most of the original music remained.

The ballet is a story about-- are you ready?-- American pioneers! BEST. BALLET. EVER. What I'm guessing would have to be the most adorable little pioneer couple in the world gets married and builds a farmhouse in Pennsylvania. I've never actually seen the ballet, but apparently a revivalist preacher also shows up. A revivalist preacher WHO DANCES BALLET! I just get really excited about this. I think it's a great concept. In the same vein as Philip Glass writing an opera about Gandhi.

Anyway, the orchestral suite is magnificent, in the truest sense of the word. These are Copland's notes on each of the eight sections of the suite.

1. Very slowly. Introduction of the characters, one by one, in a suffused light.

2. Fast. Sudden burst of unison strings in A Major arpeggios starts the action. A sentiment both elated and religious gives the keynote to this scene.

3. Moderate. Duo for the Bride and her Intended-- scene of tenderness and passion.

4. Quite fast. The Revivalist and his flock. Folksy feeling--suggestions of square dances and country fiddlers.

5. Still faster. Solo dance of the Bride-- presentiment of motherhood. Extremes of joy and fear and wonder.

6. Very slowly (as at first). Transition scene to music reminiscent of the introduction.

7. Calm and flowing. Scenes of daily activity for the Bride and her Farmer husband. There are five variations on a Shaker theme. The theme, sung by a solo clarinet, was taken from a collection of Shaker melodies compiled by Edward D. Andrews, and published under the title "A Gift to Be Simple." The melody most borrowed and used almost literally is "Simple Gifts."

8. Moderate. Coda. The Bride takes her place among her neighbors. At the end, the couple are left "quiet and strong in their new house." Muted strings intone a hushed, prayer-like choral passage. The close is reminiscent of the opening music.

The opening in particular is beautiful to me. When people tell me that they can't stand dissonant music, I direct them to the opening of this piece. What Copland does is so ingenious. He builds chords and sonorities which would ordinarily sound unpleasant to the ear, but spreads said sonorities throughout the orchestra. So what we hear is this expansive resonance, not rooted in any tonality, reminiscent of the vast American West. There's also a lovely set of variations on a Shaker theme, as mentioned in the notes. The last variation is virtually nothing more than the entire orchestra playing a simple folk tune. I love you, Aaron Copland.

This piece screams "LOVE ME!", and that's exactly what Copland was trying to do. He was able to create classical music which is distinctly American, and accessible to a wide range of audience. I have never met a person who doesn't like this piece (I was going to write about Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" today, but decided that I wanted to be a bit more likable. I'll save it for a day when I'm feeling less accommodating.). At this point I could also go into a torturously long spiel about neoclassicism, but I will refrain. All you need to know is that Copland wanted people to love this piece. So you should. Make Copland proud.

Also, I couldn't find a good recording of this piece on Youtube, so you'll have to look it up yourself. But please do, it's worth it.

Musicophilia

I feel like a terrible person for having gone this long without talking about Oliver Sacks. He's an incredibly well-known physician, Professor of Clinical Neurology and Psychiatry at Columbia. He's written several wonderful books about case histories of interesting patients he's had (The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat), victims of the encephalitis lethargica epidemic in the 1920s (Awakenings), and deaf studies (Seeing Voices), among others.

Anyway, in 2007, he published a book called Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain. And this post is really nothing more than me shamelessly begging you to read this book, because I think it really is that good. As the title suggests, it's merely a collection of stories. He talks about a group of children with William's Syndrome who are especially attuned to music from birth; the phenomena of amusia; patients who have suffered strokes and are only able to convey emotion through music. The list goes on and on.

There's one story in particular, "Seduction and Indifference", that I think sums up very well the inspiration behind the book. The author states:

"The neuroscience of music, in particular, has concentrated almost exclusively on the neural mechanisms by which we perceive pitch, tonal intervals, melody, rhythm, and so on, and, until very recently, has paid little attention to the affective aspects of appreciating music. Yet music calls to both parts of our nature-- it is essentially emotional, as it is essentially intellectual."

He goes on to give examples of music-loving patients who had accidents of various kinds, and from that time forward, would show complete indifference towards music. In other words, they respond normally to everything *except* music. This can also go the other way. A patient can have an accident (an example is given of a man struck by lightning), and can suddenly feel an uncanny inspiration to play an instrument, where before there was no musical motivation.

"The fact that one may have not only a selective loss of musical emotion but an equally selective sudden musicophilia implies that the emotional response to music may have a very specific physiological basis of it's own, one which is distinct from that of emotional responsiveness in general."

In other words, the ability to enjoy or repulse music may actually be a separate, individual part of the brain. Personally, I find that fascinating. And so should you.

Lou Harrison Piano Concerto

I don't want this to be a blog about temperaments, but I've discovered this whole world of temperaments and I think that it's fascinating. So you get to hear all about it!

My piano professor recommended this piano concerto to me. It's composed and performed using a tuning called Kirnberger II temperament. I'll talk more about that in a bit, but I want to give a background on the composer. Lou Harrison was an American composer whose life spanned most of the 20th century. As far as I know, he's not terribly well-known, but then again, I don't know a whole lot about contemporary American composers. His music tends to focus more on rhythm and melody, rather than harmony. His music, at least this piano concerto, reminds me a bit of Copland. Just a bit.

The piano concerto was written for the pianist Keith Jarrett, who, incidentally, was a famous jazz pianist. (As a side note, I want to start writing about jazz, but as of right now have only the vaguest knowledge of it. Give me time though, it'll start to pop up in this blog.) As I mentioned before, it uses the Kirnberger II temperament. It was developed in the 18th century by a German theorist and composer named Johann Philipp Kirnberger. Recall that the ideal tuning would be acoustically pure fifths. This can't really be done because when you tune from C to C, up in pure fifths, you don't have a real C by the time you get to the top. However, Kirnberger wanted to get as close to this as possible. To compensate, he shrunk two of the fifths, while the other fifths remained pure. He was also able to keep three pure thirds, the rest being slightly wider. If you go to the Wikipedia article, it's got a helpful little graph.

Anyway, the concerto in itself is really lovely. Movement 1-Part 1, Movement 1-Part 2, Movement 2, Movement 3, Movement 4. I urge you to listen to the whole thing. Of course, I always urge you to listen to the entire piece, but don't stop at the first movement with this one. It's so American, particularly the fourth movement, I think. It's most definitely my favorite piece of the moment. It's a bit difficult (for me, anyway) to hear the difference in temperament, because the differences are so incredibly minute. It's subtle, but a bit richer, as are most of the non-equal-tempered pieces which I've listened to lately.

Prolificacy

This is only funny because I'm fairly certain that it's not nearly as exaggerated as was intended.

I love you, Mozart.

Bartok Mikrokosmos

I had my first exposure to Bartok my freshman year, when I played three pieces from the fifth volume of the Mikrokosmos. The Mikrokosmos is a set of 153 progressive piano pieces in six volumes, composed between 1926 and 1939. Volumes 1 and 2 are intended for beginning pianist, and volumes 5 and 6 consist of professional repertoire. There are people who have recorded all six volumes. I think this is amazing. Anyway, Bartok is most definitely an acquired taste. I didn't appreciate him for quite a while after I started playing these pieces. And by "didn't appreciate him", I mean that I truly despised the pieces. I didn't understand them, they're most certainly not traditionally tonal in nature, and they were more difficult to play than I expected. But I learned to love them, as I started to deal with them on a more intimate level.

The first piece is #122, entitled "Chords Together and in Opposition." This still isn't a piece which I would listen to for fun. I don't wake up on bright, sunny mornings and think, "Man, I really need to listen to Chords Together and in Opposition like right now!" But it is riotous fun to play. I imagine that it's the same sort of fun which a four-year-old enjoys when banging out clashing chords on a piano. The piece in itself is a wonderful stress reliever. It wound up being a bit of an empowering thing, feeling like my quiet, passive self could play such a loud, raucous, blatantly rude-sounding piece. And play it well, if I might add.

The second piece in my little set, "Boating", is a barcarolle. A barcarolle is a folk song sung by Venetian gondoliers. The rhythm is supposed to be reminiscent of a gondolier’s oar strokes. Obviously, this piece isn’t actually a barcarolle, but it’s supposed to evoke that feeling, hence the name. It's equally as grating as the first piece, but in a different way. It's sad, and eerie. It reminds me a bit of one of the Shostakovich preludes which I mentioned in an earlier post (Op. 34 no. 22)

I was never able to play the last little piece up to my standards, despite it being my favorite piece of the three. It's called "Bagpipe Music", #138 in the Mikrokosmos. The rhythms are what initially fascinated me about the piece, and what made it so fun to play. It's one of those pieces that I still idly tap out on tables subconsciously. (I sometimes wonder if all pianists do this, play keyboards on desks and tables when bored or idle.) Despite the rhythms being quite strange, once I was able to play them, they were very comfortable. Not easy to play at a desired tempo, but comfortable when played slowly. The piece is so lively. Bartok was heavily influenced by Hungarian folk music, and it's absurdly obvious to hear in this piece. It's like a rustic peasant bagpipe dance, except no one could actually dance to an underlying rhythm like that one. I also particularly like all the quintuplets used in the melody, and the fact that it vaguely reminds me of another of the Shostakovich preludes (Op. 34 no. 21).

I couldn’t find any recordings of these pieces on youtube. It was discouraging enough that I almost didn’t post this. So please, find recordings if you can. Or if you’re really curious, hunt me down and I’ll play them for you. As I said before, it’s an acquired taste. I’m becoming a fan of 20^th century music, but I am particularly fond of these. I think that they're worth listening to at least once.

Thank You Dr. Kemp

Last night, out of boredom, I was browsing articles dealing with the social psychology of music. I was attempting to find out if there are reasons as to why certain people are drawn to particular composers. I didn't find much that I didn't already know. (Unstable people tend to prefer Wagner. Well, duh.) But, I did come across an article entitled "Individual Differences in Musical Behavior" by a guy named Anthony Kemp. I think that the idea of a prevailing personality type for musicians is intriguing. I'm a bit skeptical, but this guy certainly understands *me*. Here are a few excerpts.

“It is well documented that musicians tend to be introverted, although within this generalization considerable variation amongst different types of musician has been found. This research shows that musicians’ introversion takes a different form to that of the general population; whilst displaying the primary traits of detachment and self-sufficiency, musicians do not exhibit those traits related to seriousness and shyness. This tends to suggest that musicians are indeed self-contained people but that this is a self-imposed result of their work patterns which have been instilled from the earliest stages of music tuition. The extended period of isolation spent in practice rooms require the young musician to be comfortable in that kind of environment. In other words, music, and especially the playing of complex and demanding instruments, attracts self-sufficient and more socially aloof types; and frequent engagement in extended periods of solitary practice is likely to accentuate these traits.”

“All these approaches stress the essential nature of this feature of musicians’ temperament which encapsulates the notion of their inner strength and resolve to master and bring order to their internal lives.”

“Drevdahl and Cattell coined the term ‘bold introvert’ to describe the temperaments of creative types, and this appears to accord with Storr’s more recent view that the capacity to be alone can be interpreted as emotional maturity rather than a manifestation of fear.”

Equal Temperament Tricked Me

When I started this blog, I meant to write more than I’m writing now. I have more free time than I think I do. In other words, I like to pretend that I’m super-busy and not a social recluse when all I really do is play the piano and read books all day. Not that it’s a bad lifestyle. But I am, in fact, akin to a hermit. Meaning, I do have time to put into writing. And it’s beneficial for me.

I just finished reading a book entitled “How Equal Temperament Ruined Harmony (And Why You Should Care)”. It’s by a man named Ross Duffin. (I feel the uncontrollable urge to point out that Duffin is a pansy name, but that’s not what I’m going to talk about.) He’s an early music scholar of some sort. I think the title of his book is misleading. It makes it sound as if his argument is more forceful than it is. Essentially what he’s saying is that equal temperament is often not the best tuning option, particularly concerning voice, strings, and woodwinds. Rather than arguing against the banishment of equal temperament, he’s arguing against the exclusive use of that particular tuning system. Dr. Duffin wants people to be aware of other options of tuning an instrument. And I agreed with him more than I thought I would.

First, I feel as if I should give a definition for equal temperament. If a musician tunes a piano (for example), starting at C and tuning up in *acoustically pure* fifths, by the time the C is reached again, it’s not really a C. It’s just a bit higher than a C should be. This causes serious problems, obviously. An instrument tuned using equal temperament contains fifths which are slightly smaller than a real fifth. We’re talking quarters of semi-tones. Very minute differences. Of course, this means that the fourths are slightly wider, and the thirds are much, much wider. Our modern ears have become accustomed to this, and it sounds fine to us. Also, it allows for every key signature to be used, and they all sound exactly the same. It has its perks.

What most people don’t know, however, is that ET didn’t become prominent until the 1800s, and permanent until later. This means that Bach, Mozart, Haydn, and even Beethoven, didn’t use ET. And *this* means that their music probably sounded much different than how we hear it today on ET-tuned instruments. I don’t want to go too far into all the different tuning methods which Dr. Duffin discussed. However, I wanted to point out that most of them employed a concept called “extended meantone”. Essentially, a musician using extended meantone differentiates sharps and flats. For example, D-sharp has a different sound than E-flat. The interval from D to D-sharp is smaller than that from D-sharp to E. I hope that makes sense. I’m not sure if this is even possible to do on a keyboard instrument. The author didn’t go into it. But it seems fairly easy for string players, and would certainly produce a different tone than that which today’s audience is used to hearing.

I think it’s an interesting concept. I didn’t know that other tuning systems were ever used. I thought that equal temperament had always been the only way to tune an instrument. Even in my two solid years of music theory at Baylor, it was never brought up. But I think that it’s at least something which people should know about and explore, particularly when dealing with early music.