Choral Cacophony

WWF rap

2008-09-12T17:37:00.000-07:00

Rap and WWF wrestling just "invaded!" my TV. I turned on the TV to watch a movie and while readying the DVD player heard rapping. My guessed that one of my roommates was watching BET or MTV earlier (although both are criticized for the lack of music they play). The rapper shouted something like, "Milwaukee in the house!" and being slightly homesick for Milwaukee, I looked up from the DVD player.

This grossly muscular man with dreads was singing/rapping in a WWF stadium. Running around the ring, and even jumping onto the roped boundaries, he gave shout-outs to the audience, who shouted back. He also did this strange neck-thing where he opened his eyes widely, which I'm not sure how to describe it, except that his movements seemed very rehearsed, as if they were his signature move. The overall effect seems comical to me as an outsider, but there was something so affected and rehearsed about this rapper that I wonder if it was supposed to be a bit campy. It is WWF, but how seriously do fans take it, apart from being seriously entertained? It's hard for me to tell, and five minutes of watching this weird world will not give me insider knowledge.

What made me laugh though (laugh at, or with?), after hearing the rap, was seeing the rapper finish his song, only to prepare himself for a wrestling match! Another wrestler received his own fanfare (complete with theme song, costume, and light show), beseeching the rowdy crowd for applause. The cameras panned between the two opponents, and at that point I had to call a Milwaukee friend to share in the strangeness.

Here's to you, Milwaukee wrestling fans!

the "star spangled banner" revised

2008-08-24T06:40:00.000-07:00

I wonder what the gold-medal athletes at the Olympic Games in Beijing are thinking as they hear their country's national anthem. Achievement, fatigue, energy, pride, unity, or reverence? Or do colors, smells, and memories of a more individual type flash through their minds?

And what of the audiences at home and in the arena? National Anthems at the Olympic games are paradoxical, in a sense, because while they unify one country - rallying around one shared song - anthems also aid in distinguishing country's from one another. In this microcosm of international athleticism, anthems identify communities, but bring unity within those communities.

Similarly, I think "The Star Spangled Banner" also has a great unifying effect, while being divisive as well.

Picture being at a baseball game (or any sporting game of your preference): whether it's a little-league game or the World Series, the anthem begins the game and upon hearing the anthem, the crowd shouts a final "amen" in the form of "play ball!" It's tradition and everyone rallies behind this song. At the end of the game we may curse the Cubs, or that kid that tripped our team's kid, but for one brief moment, when we rose for the national anthem, we were unified.

The national anthem is a powerful symbol because it stands for many more things than just the Olympics and baseball. For performers this matters not only because the national anthem symbolizes a greater unity, but it also reflects the political and musical biases of the performers.

Everything and nothing is personal about performing the national anthem. If you do it "well" and nobody is offended, then the anthem is applauded for. Sometimes the praise is directed at the performer, but typically people clap because they feel it's the right and respectful thing to do. I know this to be true: Once in high school, singing the anthem at a basketball game, I lost my nerve and repeated a line. Mind you, I did not loose track of the music, I just simply omitted a line to regain the text underlay. While everyone knew something had gone awry, not everyone knew where and what I did wrong; at the end of my humiliation people still applauded.

Some artists, however, daringly put their own personality, and sometimes politics, into their performances. Jimi Hendrix made the anthem truly personal by using his own guitar stylings at Woodstock, depicting the violence of war with the guitar distortion in "the rockets' red glare." Sometimes it's more about the musical than the political style, as it is with some of the diva-performances. Whitney Houston's soul style, Mariah Carry's octave leaps, or any number of American Idols who turn the anthem into yet another over-the-top audition piece.

How we react to these style, be they a capella choirs or stadium divas, is very telling about our own musical and political biases as well.

When Bush commented on a Spanish version of "The Star Spangled Banner," called "Nuestro Himno," he chastized it by saying "I think people who want to be a citizen of this country ought to learn English," (NY Times). This, as Bush knew, was about more than language, but was about protest and immigration laws. This version was to unify those participating in a national protest against stricter immigration laws in May of 2006. Not only were the revised lyrics in Spanish meant to unify, but the artists contributing and the musical style was meant to reflect Latin American pop music. What was unifying to many Hispanic-Americans, further divided left- and right-wing politicians.

A more recent example is Rene Marie's performance where she substitutes the traditional lyrics written by Francis Scott Key, for the lyrics of the black national anthem, "Lift Every Voice and Sing."

This, to me, is the such personal musical and political expression through music. It is identity through musical style and lyrical choice. I hope that artists will continue to push the limits of self-expression, or even protest, or at least feel the freedom to do so. We may not agree with everyone's definition of patriotism, and that is a good thing, but we can respect (and maybe marvel at) an artist who dares to question such symbols through music.

life between choirs

2008-07-30T07:07:00.000-07:00

Since I was four years old I have been a part of at least one choir. I started in Cherub choir at my family's church and then the Youth and Adult choirs until I graduated from high school. During high school, I sang in the school choirs and small ensemble as well as the Madison Children's Choirs (now the Madison Youth Choirs) and participated in state WSMA choirs and music camps. Throughout my undergrad at UWM, I sang in either Women's Chorus or Concert Chorale. Bookending my undergrad, in my first and fifth years, I sang in the Milwaukee Symphony Chorus. So now it feels strange that I am not in a choir and to have no immediate plans to join one.

I would like to join a choir at the U of Illinois, but I have a couple apprehensions about auditioning. First, I do not know how much time being a grad student and TA will take up, and until I embark upon and balance this unknown, I cannot figure in more events. Second, I do not want to be tied up over holiday vacations or on weekends with perforances when I could potentially be visiting my finace in Milwaukee; so I'm choosing romance over choir. I will eventually return to my first love, and hopefully soon, but not now in this transitionary period of life.

What I need is musical activity on my own terms. I thought about getting back into oboe, and actually tried for a couple weeks, only to recall why I couldn't commit to serious study. Whatever I persue, I cannot dabble in it like some hobbiest; no, I do it because I am a musician and a scholar. (Yes, mock me, if you wish.)

What I really want to do is resume voice lessons and practice piano on my own time. This necessitates finding a teacher in IL, but I'll work on that after a month of grad studies, during the final week of September. By then I will be into a routine, know more about the music department, and have an idea of repertoire for lessons.

After all, musicologists should not be limited to writing on music as their sole medium for musicing. Besides, this is merely emoting, and not musicing at all, but it is necessary; perhaps not necessary for publishing on the web, but for personal processing and bravely (or foolishly) baring thoughts.

an emotional countdown to grad school

2008-07-22T13:25:00.000-07:00

In one month I am starting my masters in musicology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and although I have been working toward this moment for over two undergrad-years, it seems surreal. I'm eager, anxious, excited and nervous: my life is centered around a giant to-do list, concerning address changes and registration, but I know once I make it through the tedium of paperwork that I will finally be doing what I have wanted for so long. Only four more weeks of planning, packing, and "work," but only four weeks left in Milwaukee.

Leaving Milwaukee will be the hardest part, emotionally. In the past five years I enjoyed concerts, easy access to Chicago, summer festival, and gotten engaged. I am moving to Urbana, which is a college town, surrounded by cornfield, 4 and a half hours south of my fiance. Anything worth doing has a cost though, and at least I will be around people who also know this.

Aside from the inner-turmoil of leaving Wisconsin, I am ready. I have never TA'ed, but I that will be explained in orientation sessions and learned as the semester progresses. I am ready to be "introduced" to musicology and to live in the library. It's been months since I've written a term paper, but I can at the very least, purge my anxieties over writer's block here, and hopefully process new ideas from seminars. I am ready!

bars and board games

2008-04-25T22:12:00.000-07:00

I am a board game geek. Outside of reading, music-ing, and collaging, board gaming is one of my favorite pastimes. Board games fit my social mood: I am quiet and intense, but with bursts of humor and creativity. I like knowing that everyone interested in the game can feel included, and that there is a pacing and flow to the events aided by the turns taken in the game. Even rambunctious games, like charades or spoons, involve some order. It's much easier to transition into free-flowing conversation after a game that makes everyone feel active in the group. Board games tend to bring out the best qualities in people too: you find out who likes logic, who is superstitious, who can just lay back and enjoy, and who has boundless enthusiasm - you see people's playful sides. You also see people's impatience, competitiveness (which can be good sometimes too), or disinterest. Board games are not for everyone.

Tonight I got to play board games at the Art Bar (Riverwest!) with two friends, and three other people we ran into at the bar who my friend knew. Alcohol and Pictionary - this is living the high-life, as the Miller ads might say. We also played "The aMAZEing Labyrinth Game," which, although it is supposed to be a kids game, was pretty interesting, even sober. It might have been even better if David Bowie appeared in silver spandex singing "Dance, magic dance!"

My favorite game lately has been Chronology, which is by far one of the geekiest games I've latched on to. The rules are basic: you are read an event in history and guess whether it comes before or after one event card you are dealt. As more cards accumulate, the time line narrows and the dates are harder to place. Who ever gets ten cards in chronological order first wins. I want to create a music history version to add to the game. It would be a deck of at least 100 events in western music that could be used to study with, or to add to the regular game.

I have found a way to combine my obsessions: academic musical study and trivia-based games.

Bowie cannot save you from my madness!!!

first day at hal leonard

2008-04-21T17:17:00.000-07:00

Today was my first day working at Hal Leonard.

First, I sat in on a weekly-Monday meeting of new publications. I got to wake up and ease into training be watching a Chad Smith drumming DVD and learn about music books hitting the stands this week. Hot off the press, hot coffee, and a hot new job - this is my beginning.

I will be a part-time sales rep. which means I may talk to you if you order music over the phone. Well, maybe, I'm still learning about my position. Everyone at Hal Leonard has a musical background. Most people will enthusiastically tell you their music histories and share their passion. Others don't need to; they edit, research, design aspects of sheet music, books, audio and their excitement shows in their work.

Rather than a detestable office space of creative-less adults, this gig is interesting and musical. The experience was akin to something out of the Twilight Zone: I overheard names dropped like "Verdi," "Wagner," and "Hannah Montana" spoken by excited grown-ups who enjoyed their jobs. What I heard did not match the cubicle picture I saw.

Huzzah for having a job - a real grow-up, fun music job.

holst's "the planets" on a flip-flop day

2008-04-20T15:54:00.000-07:00

Today sparkled. Wearing flip-flops for the first time this spring, along with my UWM Libraries cap, I arrived at the Marcus Center downtown for Holst's The Planets. Since the women's chorus is backstage for this piece, I kept my flip-flops on, but not my libraries hat.
Backstage, a monitor showed Edo conducting the orchestra so that later, in the "Neptune" movement we could follow the 5-4 pulse. I watched the monitor out of my left eye during "Jupiter" and listened to the music with my right ear, positioning myself between the phenomenon of sound and light waves.
Then I became part of the female synthesizer, singing a steady "g." Mechanically, we watched our director interpret the miniature conductor in the monitor and sang our six part score.
Shortly after beginning, we left the stage and I re-adorned my libraries hat. My car was parked only a block away and so I walked around downtown for a half hour. Happily, in my first-time flip-flops.

what did bach look like

2008-03-06T09:35:00.001-08:00

CNN posted a story on Tuesday called "What did Bach look like?" The article features a picture of what Bach might have looked like using computer generated technology. From this digital image a bust was created; this bust was displayed at Eisenach in an exhibition call "Bach Through the Mirror of Medicine."

The computer-based Bach bust seems like a mascot for irony. While it speaks of the current technological achievements, in both the sciences and arts, it also cries out to the traditional and classical: it is computerized iconography. Not only is Bach a symbol of the old-fashioned and classical in culture today, but busts are also a symbol of an old-fashioned art form. Creating this bust of Bach perpetuates his large-than-life icon status, yet humanizes him through facial reconstruction. The need to make a life-like bust today seems not only like morbid hero-worship, but also desperation, as the face of Baroque genius melds with twenty-first-century capabilities.

Why does an infusion of "technology" seem to make everything "cool?" When something isn't attracting enough attention or customers, then a .com is added, as if a digital mark is the new authority for what is or isn't. The internet is great for music, information, shopping, and creating new art, and we are in that age, yet there seems to be something rather "uncool" force digital ideas on objects just to make them so.

For example: I love that I can go to itunes or Naxos and listen to the Bach B Minor Mass, download the music, and take it with me on my ipod. I am also fascinated that we can take the shape of a deceased person's skull and virtually recreate his feature without photographs to go by. But why Bach?

The real question in not "why this was done," but "for whom." The answer to the "why" is "because we can." But who would want to see this? This does not change the way we hear his music, and it will probably not attract young listeners or influence another Bach revival. The bust was created for those already obsessed with Bach's biography and for those interested in the digital arts and sciences.

verdi's requiem in milwaukee this weekend

2008-03-05T13:36:00.001-08:00

I am looking forward to singing in the Verdi Requiem with the MSO choir this weekend, that is if my voice will return in time. I've tried tea, vitamin C, zinc, and the Netti Pot, and although I have a lot of energy, my throat is still raspy. I sound like an alto whose smoked for sixty years, instead of a 23 year-old soprano.

Aside from my cold, I am so excited for this concert. Tonight is the first rehearsal with the orchestra! What more is there to say, except that I hope people come! And of course this concert will draw a large crowd, because Verdi is a canonical classic with recognizable tunes. This music is new to me, however, and I am rediscovering why I love to sing in choir. Oh, the emotion, the drama, the chromaticism!

I can't help but to make fun of myself for enjoying this piece so much. How often do serious music students gush in excitement over seemingly stale, "Classical" music? I love this music because I can sing it and put it into a contemporary context for myself, basing my musical judgment not on the style or time period of the requiem, but on the music itself, living in the present. I don't claim to believe that Verdi's music "speaks for itself," but it speaks to me. If only I could speak this week....

john denver and jacques cousteau

2008-02-15T08:21:00.000-08:00

Reading Jacques Cousteau's The Living Sea made me eager to find YouTube clips from Cousteau's voyages aboard his ship, Calypso - I came across this video by chance. Although John Denver's video may appear corny or sentimental, it articulates the romanticism I read in Cousteau's writing. Denver explains the ineffable experiences on board the Calypso and his need to emote the adventures through song. For days, he felt his music was inadequate, until a moment of inspiration arrived while skiing days later.

Denver, like many of the "Romantic" composers, wandered around in nature until "inspiration" revealed itself in the form of a song. This account of Denver's compositional process fits perfectly for a song inspired by nature and sea expeditions. I feel poised, like a kid listening to storyteller, when I hear Denver's story because he is a talented storyteller, and because he has created a seamless narrative around his song.

That sense of narrative and inspiration in nature exudes from The Living Sea as well. Although the bulk of the memoir takes place in the 1950s, I felt like I was reading a story from the nineteenth century:

"The gray bank two hundred feet down was the boundary for two reasons; over the the precipice lay madness. Danger became voluptuous. My temples pounded. Extending my arms like a sleepwalker, I stroke my fins and glided over the edge of the beyond. Hundreds of white walking canes stuck out of the vertiginous wall. I dropped slowly along a torment of life forms... Pale gelatinous tumors grew on giant sponges ornamented with spider webs." (Cousteau, 20)

Who would imagine "madness" over "the edge of the beyond" when looking at the darkness of the ocean depths? Who describes "ornamented" sponges and "voluptuous" danger? Cousteau's writing reads more like an adventure novel than non-fiction account of sea exploration and I, like a Romantic sap, devour every word.

I also felt like a sap when I listened to Denver's song. The orchestra forced an epic and sentimental tone onto the song; perhaps the strings express Denvers feeling of grandeur while aboard Calypso. The half-yodeled chorus and folk-pop sound express Denver's style. This song was his way of describing the once indescribable feeling while sailing with Cousteau. The refrain reminds me a bit of a sea shanty, with Denver's pop twist to it.

I imagine that Cousteau approved of Denver's song with the sea footage. I think he liked know that he inspired environmentalists, readers, and artists. This music video is a fabulous collaboration of two great storytellers, as silly as it may seem on the surface.

the blues

2008-02-12T14:06:00.000-08:00

Last night I stayed home from choir rehearsal due to a migraine. It was so intense that I couldn't simply sleep it off or take pain killers, so I sat listening to music until I fell asleep. As I sat in bed for the duration of about three albums, the final voice I heard before drifting off was that of Bessie Smith. On more than one occasion, I have forgotten about my physical pain while listening to this diva's voice. The repeated chord progressions comfort me and her voice surrounds me.

Beethoven's Shadow

2007-09-26T12:18:00.000-07:00

Rehearsals for Beethoven's 9th have begun! At rehearsal our director asked for a show hands to find out who had never sung the Ninth and my hand few up: This is why I joined the symphony chorus this fall.

Of course, I'm excited also about the Chichester Psalms which is coming up soon, but everything is eclipsed by Beethoven right now. The sighs of "finally" when we put away the Bernstein and took out the Beethoven escaped out of every section in the choir. (There are always humorous moments, created specifically by conductors to get reactions from the choir, but this audible mix of relief and excitement made me want to giggle.)

Beethoven, however, is always a serious matter, or so we've been taught. He is myth and genius, not mortal and we still live in his shadow today. This is the dude that even non-classical fans want to buy symphony tickets to hear.

An interesting, but unsuccessful, challenge to this "Beethoven-genius-legend" has been released in the new film Copying Beethoven. Staring Ed Harris as Beethoven and Dianne Kruger as a copyist named Anna Holtz, a new myth is told. You may be saying to yourself, "A girl copyist?" Yes, a girl who was raised by nuns, and therefore educated, was sent to be Beethoven's copyist. Even more, she makes "corrections" to his score and ultimately aids him in conducting his Ninth. "Scandalous!" you may say. Actually, it's just awkward and funny - funny if you actually know Beethoven's biography, that is. The worst is when Beethoven keeps yelling at people to speak louder. Obviously, the writers and director must have wanted partially-deaf Beethoven so that he could carry out the uncomfortably weird relationship he had with his female co-star. In short: do not waste your time, let alone your money, on this one; even Immortal Beloved is better than this, and that's not saying much.

But back to choir: there are many composer bio-flicks and movies about bands, but I have not run across many about choirs. There's the Sister Act movies. What else - give me some ideas, please!

If ye love me speak with a British accent

2007-09-23T06:58:00.000-07:00

This morning I sang "If ye love me" with my church choir. It is a beautiful piece that is deceptively difficult due to the fact that: A) it was written circa 1547 and B) our bodies are used to 19-20th Century music. Ironically, the polyphony that gives our modern choirs such a challenge was seen as simple for the early Anglican Church when Tallis composed this piece. This church composer was one of the first to write in a new style for the reinstatement protestantism by Queen Elizabeth I. Tallis created enjoyable, functional music which was choral and syllabic, not as mellismatic as music from the Catholic mass.

Fast-forward 460 years to 2007.

How does a choir sing Renaissances music? With a British accent, of course! Everyone know that Midwestern accents are much too vulgar for English music so directors do all they can to make their choir use proper diction.

For example: When we speak, the "r" turns into more of a vowel than a consonant. (Country music singers are the most notorious.) In this Tallis hymn we have the line, "and I will pray the father..." There are two problems with the word "pray": the "r" and the diphthong on "ay." One solution is to give the choir an new word to sing, which, when they sing it together in the context of the anthem ends up sounding like the word that is actually written on the page. At rehearsal we were told to sing "puh-dey" instead of "pray."

These "translations" always make me laugh (to myself, of course), but they do work and I'm happy my choir trusts our director.

"If ye lAHve me (no breath!) keep mah commandments
And ah wIll puh-dey the fahthah
And he shahll give yoo anothah cahmfortah
Thaht he may abahd with yoo fo-evuh
E...vn' the spi-It of trooth."

- John 14:15-17
PCV (Phonetic Choral Version)