The Fredösphere

The rules of modern American politics require a person like John McCain occasionally to humiliate himself ritualistically.  What's these kids' excuse?

Mixolydian Mode has moved -- don't get left behind.

Here's a story on the Aristides Atelier, where painting is taught the old-fashioned way.  (You come in here with palettes full of mush...!)  Disturbingly, recent experience has caused me to question the emphasis on craft.  Just as everyone else is loosing faith in self-expression, I'm reminded that some people got it and some don't.  (More on that topic when I've processed it fully.)  Anyway, this talk of old-fashioned pedagogy reminds me of stories of the bad old days at U-M:  student composers presented scores to their teachers on vellum. Here at the Fredölogical Institute -- the only place in the world a student can get full, rigorous training in nested counterpoint -- I require my students to submit their counterpoint lessons carved in Italian marble.  Which means the kids learn to think really, really hard before committing themselves to each note.

Labels: Counterpoint, Creativity, VideoClip

This may not be the first time I've linked to the four singing horses (hat tip to A Cappella News) but it's a classic, so why not.  Also, I just noticed something:  when you turn on each horse's voice, it doesn't begin singing in the middle of its loop, as I expected.  This would be necessary if the four voices were kept in strict temporal relationships with each other.  No, when you turn on a voice, you're deciding exactly when it starts its part.  You become a composer, creating one of an infinite set of contrapuntal possibilities.

Okay, so I admit the description makes it seem more profound than it feels once you go there and try it.  Still, the concept startled me, and got me thinking.  This flexibility explains why the voice parts are so crabbed; five-part fully invertible counterpoint is child's play compared to writing four parts that must work at least kinda okay together with any possible temporal relationship. 

Here are more thoughts ... Could an example of standard-practice counterpoint exist within this framework?  Surely no, not a non-degenerate case.  Do examples of this approach exist in the wild?  Very likely, but the examples I know of that give this kind of freedom to the performer allow for freedom of tempo; they even tend to assume rubato.  Finally -- and be honest -- is the title of this post the most mind-bendingly brilliant pun you've read all day, or what?  Yes.

Labels: Counterpoint, vocal