Memories in Music: Christmas 2007

During my last year in Nashville, I had the incredible opportunity to sing with Vanderbilt's Blair Collegium, an acapella chorus of 20 voices focused on pre-16th century and 20th century music. My short time with the group provided a number of profound experiences, the most memorable of which was learning and performing "Friede Auf Erden" by Arnold Schoenberg. Although we performed the piece twice, our first performance - last December at Westminster Presbyterian on West End - will likely remain the single most exciting musical venture of my life.

To put it mildly, I was lucky to be in Collegium Vocale considering my relative lack of choir experience and vocal training, not to mention my mediocre voice and range. However, due to a good sight-reading audition and the director's belief that I could sing the second tenor parts of that semester's material, I was accepted into the group and began rehearsing immediately. Prior to Collegium, all of my choir performance experience followed a predictable formula: learn the song in rehearsal and take the stage with a confidence that those routine rehearsals would result in nothing less (and, perhaps, nothing more) than a competent rendition of the piece. Rarely did a performance contain an ounce of spontaneity, and afraid of being branded a dork, I sometimes kept an ironic distance between myself and earnest performance in the form of irritating smirks and destracting inside jokes. "Friede" didn't follow the usual rules or allow for personal detachment. Every performance of the song was a crap shoot, each voice relying on every other voice to sing their part correctly lest the entire piece derail into (unintentional) atonal oblivion. Simultaneously, our director - quite rightly - equally emphasized phrasing and dynamics that mirrored "Friede's" violent but hopeful text. Like Schoenberg's score, this textual interpretation could not be expressed by rote memorization, but only by the concerted effort and full concentration of each choir member.

I remember taking the stage at that December concert excited by the gamble of performing such a difficult piece. I was equally excited to know that every single member of the choir was totally dialed in, sincerely committed to an evocative and honest rendering of the piece. When we had finished singing, far before I began critiquing that particular performance, I felt a profound sense of satisfaction knowing that, at the very least, we had succeeded in mustering and maintaining an intensity, focus, and vulnerability necessary to do the work justice.

Download "Friede Auf Erden"

Reuniting the Beatles

If you have an hour to kill sometime, check out this recent episode of 7 Second Delay on WFMU. Ken and Andy round up four guys sharing the names of the Fab Four for a once-in-a-lifetime telephonic reunion. In an effort to identify with these tragically famous individuals, Andy reveals something never before known to his listeners: he was originally named Warren Beatty. Included are discussions of La Leche League, vaginal childbirth, and an inexhaustive list of all people at least once termed "the 5th Beatle."

Keep It Like a Secret

Anyone familiar with Benjamin Curtis, formerly of Secret Machines, now of School of Seven Bells? Something he said in a recent interview sounds to me like an endorsement of the Westside Record Club. Take a look:

Interviewer: What is your ideal situation for listening to music?
Benjamin Curtis: Definitely not headphones. I really like to hear music in a room. I don’t really like when it’s too separated, with the subwoofers and the systems that are too ornate. I just like something really simple. A couple of speakers in a quiet room. Not blasting, but just loud enough so you kind of feel absorbed by it. Not so loud that if you want to lean over to your friend and say, “This song sucks,” or, “I can’t believe they did that — this is amazing,” you can still do that. My best memories of listening to music have been like that.

So the community element is a big part of it?
It’s different doing that, especially if the people you’re listening with are on the same wavelength with you at that moment — it feels like a special moment. It’s these moments with friends where you’re like, “Remember the first time we ever heard this? Wasn’t that great? Wasn’t that the perfect record to put on?”

Over and out,

T

Mitch Mitchell

Mitch Mitchell, the reason I play drums, died.  I hope we can all appreciate the impact he had on the music world.  His fluid fusion style inspired many drummers and he will be sorely missed.  I honestly wouldn't care about Jimi Hendrix if he hadn't been the drummer.  

Our next meeting

Our next meeting will be held at Daniel and Crystal's apartment this Saturday (10/15/08) @ 9pm
here's the address:

10480 National Blvd. #106
Los Angeles, CA 90034

This is what it looks like:






Morgan's choice. I'm pretty psyched.

Open Audition for the Role of "Paperback Writer"

Would you like to write an entry in the 33 1/3 series?

Maybe the Club should collectively author a book. And no, I don't think anyone's written about "New Miserable Experience" yet.

Deliver the Letter, the Sooner the Better

On the way to Culver's Fall Festival on Saturday morning, I was listening to a Motown's Greatest Hits double-cd I had bought a little over a year ago in anticipation of djing a wedding. Although I bought the cd for party purposes and was bringing it to church for largely that very reason, it works on a pure listening basis as well. The ubiquity of the songs might tempt one to give the songs short shrift, but it would be perilous to do so. These are pop hits in the best sense of that term: incredibly catchy and danceable tunes communicating universal (popular) sentiments. And that brings me to hearing "Please Mr. Postman" by the Marvelettes this past Saturday morning.



There are almost too many remarkable things about this song and recording to mention, so I'll rather inarftfully list what I love about Please Mr. Postman:

(1) The opening snare blast and "Wait!" There's something so urgent in this abrupt and direct beginning. I guess they're shouting at the postman, but as a listener you feel your attention immediately turn to the Marvelettes and, in a second, Gladys Horton.

(2) Gladys Horton's lead vocal has a rasp that is almost the antithesis to that other Motown icon, Diana Ross. I see her in the isolation booth sleep-deprived from tossing and turning at night and stressfully taking drags from a cigarette while the Marvelettes sing. And her rasp gets more pronounced as the song goes along, her pleading intensifying and becoming more and more desperate. This nuance would likely be lost in the modern pop music recording process; aside from the effects that would inevitably alter the original lead vocal recording, most tracks today aren't captured in a single take but are a cobbled-together assemblage of numerous takes. I could be wrong about this, but I'm inclined to think that what you hear on this recording is one take with minimal-to-no editing. And that makes sense; this song is a frustrated outburst to an innocent third party. She couldn't give a shit about self-editing - she wants to vent.

(3) Again, unlike the Supremes, the background vocals are almost comically shrill. And I could be wrong about this, but I don't hear any guitar; it sounds like pure bass, drums, handclaps, and piano. Nothing's overthought or manicured (except for that mysterious moment of reverb around 2:12 - odd).

(4) This song is sad. Now, there's a whole different critique to be written about how creepily dominant it is that five men wrote this song about a girl pining for a letter from her boyfriend, but let's give these guys the benefit of the doubt and assume they just happened to write from the female perspective. This is, after all, a universal feeling: waiting impatiently to hear from someone, wondering what they're going to say and how they're going to say it. I guess I don't have a lot of experience waiting for letters in the mail, but in a mid-90s (and now hopelessly antiquated) twist, I traded facsimiles with a girl who had just moved to China. Although I eagerly anticipated getting the faxes and was pleasantly surprised when she started augmenting them with ink stamps of the Beatles, I most looked forward to the language immediately preceding her signature. Would she profess her love or her cold sincerity? How did it compare to earlier salutations? Had she cooled on me or were we still an item? I had to know, and I sent my fax sometimes for the very purpose of provoking a reply. It makes me wonder if the girl in "Please Mr. Postman" had written this guy or if she was just hoping for a spontaneous letter. If the latter, wow, that's really the pits - just waiting, hoping, praying for someone to call or write on his/her own initiative. She may not even want good news - she just wants to feel worth the effort of a letter.