See the Music Page for
more information about
my choral compositions.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Funnies
Bob Thompson of the Washington Post was put on an
all-graphic-novel diet, and
survived. It's a nice article overall, but how can he justify waiting until
page five to mention (barely) the great, monumental, fantabulous Watchmen? Oh well, he's mentioned lots of intriguing
titles I (and you, dear reader) ought to add to the reading pile.
The growing influence of Japanese culture has been a hot topic among my friends
lately. Can there be anything more Japanese than
cellphone manga?
This whole Japan thing--I think it's going
to be big. Real big. You heard it here first.
A new angle found by SciFi Scanner, and a perfect topic for the Fredösphere: Ancient Christian Paintings
Give Evidence of Space Alien Visitation. It sounded kooky, but then I saw
the painting first cited: The Baptism of Christ by Aert de Gelder. I'm
not sure who, but somebody's phoning home in that painting.
Meanwhile...
My son is enjoying a Boychoir retreat this week, and I was privileged to observe
a special educational demonstration given to the boys by John Churchville, a local
expert in classical Indian drumming. It's amazing what just one hour of explanation
can do to greatly increase one's appreciation of an art form. Hey, here's
an idea: we could introduce music education into the public schools and effect
an explosion in classical music interest among the general population!
Anyway, John's demo was info-packed and conducted with grace, even when the
boys in the front row fidgeted or experienced gastric indiscretions thanks to the
meal of tacos and refried beans consumed just minutes before. Oh, and then
there was the "please back up; I can feel your breath on the back of my hands" moment.
John showed us a video of his teacher, pandit (i.e., pundit, sort of like the Indian equivalent
of a Ph.D.) Swapan Chaudhuri. I found the following video which seems to be
the clearest picture of the master employing the one-handed roll characteristic
of his region's style of drumming. See it for the first time at about 1' 30";
in most videos the hand moves too fast to see that he's flapping the right hand
in a left-to-right movement, using the thumb and forefinger as one "drumstick" and
the other three fingers as the other.
Am I the only person who sees a bit of Harlan Ellison in Chaudhuri's face and posture?
Boychoir conductor Tom Strode mentioned the influence of
Indian Music upon Olivier Messiaen.
If only Messiaen had Youtube, think of how much more he could have achieved!
Although, in that case, we may have had the Messiaenification of the following--which
is too disturbing to contemplate!
Look carefully at this post at John Scalzi's blog. Look at the first photo. In particular, look
at the painting of the strawberry on the far wall in the picture. Note the
lower-left corner of that painting. Notice the
gray head that is almost, but not quite, obscuring that corner.
That head just happens to be the one attached to my body. Yes, I was in
attendance at the author event at the Ann Arbor District Library last Sunday.
John was joined by fellow Ohiöspheric SF authors
Tobias Buckell
and Paul Melko.
The one boooooing! moment occurred when a gentleman from the audience
questioned the value of publishing on the internet, compared to the "relatively
permanent" nature of print. The panel responded with more grace and
patience than I probably would have, but the content of their answers shot down his
premise. Scalzi noted that "the disappearance of the internet implies
apocalypse." And then he noted that apocalypse would be very bad. For
people, for books, for everyone. Then he described the many people busy
archiving the whole internet. The Noösphere Is Eternal! (My
words, not his. But you knew that.)
Yes, Toby and Paul are funny and smart, but John modestly fails to mention he
outdid even those two in clever, cogent, articulate comments on the state of
SF publishing today. In sum, the event was marred only by its brevity.
John, if you read this: I was the one in the question line who stuck out
his tongue impatiently when you called a halt to the Q&A session. I apologize
for my bad manners. Please come back to Ann Arbor anytime.
Close readers of The Fredösphere have figured out that Messiaen is my gateway drug
for eep-op-ork-ah-ah modernism. At the
urging of Alex Ross I have softened my resistance even to Des Canyons Aux Etoiles.
What I learned from this video, the first I've seen of le maître, is that
his personality is not the super-serene one of my imagination, but rather that of
a high-energy enthusiast. I detect the faintest whiff of Asperger's, and why
am I surprised? A life-long obsession with bird calls was supposed
to be evidence of ... what? I ask myself. I was gazing on the haloed icon;
I didn't suspect that Saint Olivier might be a bit of a nutcase. And believe
me, I use these terms with the greatest possible affection, even admiration.
Those who know me will testify that I tell the truth.
Allow me to introduce a young composer named
Philip Rice. Philip is the long-lost cousin of John, one of my closest
friends. A recent family funeral brought the two together, and Philip's background
is so freakishly similar to mine, John introduced us via email. Philip comes
from a religious, home schooling family and has been interested in composing from
childhood. He even lived for a while in Coldwater, Michigan, the county seat
of my ancestral home. He now studies composition at Central Michigan University.
He has a myspace page that dazzles, although I speak as one with embarassing memories
of how much (that is to say, how little) thought I put into self-promotion when
I was that age. I should mention his technical mastery compares favorably
to that of my 20ish self as well. To top it all off, according to the photos
of him online, he kind of looks like me, or more precisely, a considerably improved
version of me.
I hate him.
Specifically, I hate him in brief, unguarded moments, but that hasn't stopped me
from offering him my complements. We'll be trading scores and advice in the
future if my usual laziness in such matters (i.e., relationships) can be mastered.
CMU is several hours away from Ann Arbor, but my dream is that he could visit and
sit in on a meeting of the Creativity Study Group that I'm organizing. Wait:
I haven't blogged the CSG yet? I guess I'll have to--in a future post.
Linking to Daniel Wolf has become my new bad habit, but only because of the immoderation
with which I do it.
Nevertheless, here I am again to tell you about his
12 Kleine Præludienwhich he is offering as a free download in pdf.
I must mention it because one of the movements is dedicated to ... I blush! ...
li'l ol' me. This is one of those very cool, very unexpected pleasures that
come along in life all too rarely. I get the key of A; hmmm, what does that imply
about my character? Let's go to the
ultimate guide to such matters, and see what terribly detailed, nuanced
description for A Major we find there:
A Major: Happy
Ooookay, I guess that fits me, as far as it goes. But wait, the key Daniel
chose is only
A, not A Major. What does A Minor mean?
A Minor: Pure
Uuuuh, yeah. Looks like that ultimate guide ain't quite so ultimate.
Whoa, whoa, whoa! I pour all kinds of creative energy into composing my music;
do you really think I have any left over to
design original fonts for the score???
(This is on my mind because I just sent out a score this week for a competition.
The music is a setting of an ancient Irish poem. For the title, I used a free,
Tolkieny-looking Icelandic font called
Edda. For the rest of the score, I
used the Finale defaults, except for the complete text printed on the first page;
the text is so long, I had to use Arial so the tiny letters could be read.
I know what you're saying: font promiscuity! ...but that was
the best I could do without rethinking every font decision in the score, which I
had no time for. Why, why, why did you people ever get me noticing fonts?!
Cure you, Daniel Wolf! Curse you,
James Lileks!
I am pleased, however, that M. Wolf and others like
Georgia; after an exhausting
review of my choices a while back, I settled on Georgia as the most - interesting
- yet - commonly - available - and - without - being - too - weird choice for my outgoing
email.)
Meanwhile...
What's the greatest choir on earth? Chanticleer gets my vote. Richard
Morrison (quoted at A Cappella
News) seems tempted to nominate the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir
directed by Paul Hillier. He pulls his punch, however, and for the same reason
I would: their programming lacks the brilliance of Chanticleer. (Maybe
they could compensate with better fonts.)
Finally...
The Sci-Fi Catholic demonstrates how awkward
confession can be for the anime fan. It is no easier for the
hardcore MMORPGer.
Who besides Daniel Wolf is blogging brainily about the process of composing?
If there are others, I want to (I should!) know. Most recently he's making
an analogy about the
world-building of speculative fiction and role-playing games.
Yeh got yer composing, yeh got yer SF; perfect.
Next, let's sample some SF video. First, we return to the most SF country
that ever was, the USSR, for an animated interpretation of Ray Bradbury's There
Will Fall Soft Rains:
...followed by a Star Trek mashup called A Cavalcade of Redshirt Fatalities:
Finally, we explore two interstitial realms of the almost-real and the almost-fake.
Of the former, Design
Observer reverse-engineers the Steampunk movement and finds it wanting,
making good points but adopting a regrettable "gatekeeper" tone in the process:
how dare these people design when they're clearly not real designers?!
(I like DO; why do I only link when they annoy me? Maybe I am the
regrettable gatekeeper.) Of the almost-fake, check out these "tilt-shift"
photos (more here) that make
true cityscapes look like cheesy H0-scale models. Be-yootiful, and don't miss
the skeptics in the comments section.
Got an extra $1.5 million lying around that you can't seem to shake? Why not spend it on Ann Arbor's only Frank Lloyd Wright house? It's for sale. The link has the details (for example, the sellers are the original owners of the 60-year-old home) and a video walk-through. I, and most residents of Ann Arbor, have never seen the house, since it sits at the end of a dead-end, wooded, semi-private lane in one of those areas of town where the houses ooze smug
comfort and trees seem to frown at all people who do not belong. People like me.
If I were a Dead Russian Composer, I would be Igor Stravinsky.
Known as a true son of the new 20th Century, my music started out melodic and folky but slowly got more dissonant and bizzare as I aged. I am a traveler and a neat freak, and very much hated those rotten eggs thrown at me after the premiere of "The Rite of Spring."
A new angle 
Umie the Umlaut says, "ask your doctor about the Fredösphere!"
