: 2011

The PULSE

The Pulse: Issue 2 March 2011 Editor: Catherine M. Robb Contributors: Annabel Fleming-Brown Aaron Holloway-Nahum Peter Longworth Pippa Macmillan Karin Meyer Katie Reid Catherine M. Robb Brianna E. Robertson Anna Shucksmith Joel S. Summers Kirsty Walker

If you would like to contribute to the

next issue of The Pulse due to be

published in autumn 2011, or to be

involved in any way, please feel free to

contact the editor.

The Pulse c/o 14 University Gardens Glasgow, Scotland G12 8QH Email: thepulsejournal@live.co.uk

© The Pulse 2011

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CONTENTS

1. Editorial: Where do we go from here? 1 Catherine M. Robb

2. Plugged-in and Disconnected: Is this the 21st Century Fate of Flâneurs? 2 Katie Reid 3. Why You Should Listen to Claude Vivier’s Music 6 Anna Shucksmith 4. The Subservient Future of Film Music 8 Peter Longworth

5. The Influence of LSD on Psychedelic Rock 10 Karin Meyer 6. Fundamentals of the Suzuki Method 13 Pippa Macmillan 7. Why Music Education Fails to Honour Music: Towards Analysis and Understanding 15 Catherine M. Robb 8. The X Factor: The Death and Rebirth of the Entertainment Genre 18 Joel S. Summers

9. A Revival for Shape Note Singing 21 Brianna E. Robertson 10. The Harpsichord and the Piano: Relatives or Rivals? 24 Kirsty Walker 11. Review Article: ‘OUT HERE: Map of Impossibilities’ 27 Aaron Holloway-Nahum 12. Review: Glasgow’s MINIMAL Weekend 30 Annabel Fleming-Brown

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EDITORIAL: Where do we go from here?

The second issue of The Pulse has crossed many borders, both geographically

and within its content. Unlike issue one, which was a truly Scottish affair, this spring

sees the inclusion of articles from three students in London and another from South

Africa. As I hope you’ll find, this diversity will add another dimension to the discussions

evolving from the articles and allow readers to consider their already formed opinions

within a much wider context. If the geographical boundaries of The Pulse continue to

grow, we will hopefully begin to see an increasing number of the international student

community able and willing to participate in a living debate as to the nature and impact

of our contemporary musical culture. In the first issue I laid out The Pulse’s vision: to be

the intermediary that advances the boundary between student and academic.

However, on reflection this is not the only boundary we have begun to cross. We have

articles touching both an academic style of writing and that of more colloquial

journalism, there are articles mutually discussing ‘pop’ and more serious ‘art’ musical

cultures, while others link the past and present with a view to the future. It is where

these dialectical frontiers touch that we can really begin to engage in asking what these

concepts mean for us and in themselves. Once again, I have not dictated the theme or

style of any of the articles – The Pulse is thus a true representation of what we want

(and need) to explore.

It is hard to ignore the lack of conviction with which the media ubiquitously bombards

us. Muso is still patronisingly seducing us with an offensive ‘dumbing-down’ of musical

culture and overly sexual references. September’s issue hosted an article entitled

“Faking It,” while their website includes a directory of up-and-coming artists called “G

Spot” – there is no doubt as to the unnecessary connotations that these titles

engender. Look to the latest February Issue to find a somewhat creative misquoting of

my recent interview regarding the “high-falutin’” NYOS tour to Mauritius. Furthermore,

Classic FM TV advertises the new Windows 9 Internet Explorer with a tagline, “beautiful

music deserves a beautiful browser” (does it, really?), while images of women in

fashionable dresses caress their instruments, men glare invitingly into the camera. This

type of media is all-encompassing and sticky - it is hard to shake off our annoyance with

these images and catchphrases. But what do we do with this stickiness? Where is our

place in this destructive mess?

Adorno begins the introduction to Philosophy of Modern Music with a quote from

Thomas Mann: “For in human Art we are not merely dealing with playthings, however

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pleasant or useful they may be, but ... with a revelation of truth.”* It seems that the

popularised media is focusing on art and music as a ‘plaything’ rather than the

exposure of some kind of truth and integrity. Our place then, within these trifling

novelties, is to find our voices through a discussion of truth, asking where it can be

found and how to attain it. Of course, this may begin with the simplest of questions.

Instead of resigning to despair at the pointlessness of our discourse, our dialogues and

debates are ultimately matters of optimism and anticipation – we are one step further

on the continuum, contributing to a revelation of truth.

I would like to thank all the contributors and readers of the first two issues, without

whom The Pulse would be redundant. Without funding for printing costs The Pulse

would be subjected to a life inside the computer. Thank you to The University of

Glasgow’s Student Initiative Grant for providing Issue One’s ink and to The University of

Glasgow’s Music Department for Issue Two’s.

Catherine M. Robb, Editor

University of Glasgow

January 2011

*Thomas Mann, The Story of a Novel, (New York: Knopf, 1961) p. 43

Plugged-in and Disconnected: Is this the 21st Century Fate of Flâneurs?

by Katie Reid

rom celebrities who have everyday life photographed for all to see, to social

networking systems that make it possible for individuals to publish personal details

about their lives via the Internet, the public/private dichotomy is one that is becoming

ever more disrupted in 21st century life. Another technological advance, which has found

its place in contemporary society, is the MP3 player. Here, I would suggest that those

who choose to „plug-in‟ to their portable music players build a private sound bubble in

which to live and, as independent listeners, become segregated from the public world.

They walk in their bubble disconnected from the rhythms, beats, sounds and voices of

the city and instead are connected through their earphones to the digital music that

pulses into their consciousnesses.

In his Arcades Project, Walter Benjamin presents a collection of information about Paris

in the 19th

century. Although unfinished at the time of his death, what has been

published is a wealth of data including philosophy, poetry, his personal observations,

F

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photographs and newspaper articles. A chapter allocated to „The Flâneur‟ builds a

picture of the city street wanderer, often in a state similar to boredom or intoxication,

absorbing the life of Paris. Benjamin provides a detailed account of these citizens who

he saw as an essential part of the City. By relating these descriptions to the MP3 player-

listeners of today we can gain a different perspective and uncover what fundamentally

happens to those who choose to „plug-in‟.

As a whole, the UK now owns 19.6 million1 MP3 players and subsequently the approach

to entering the public world is often accompanied by an immediate desire to attach

oneself to an independent soundtrack. Music as a tool of communication can bring

people together, can provide them with common ground or be used as a means of self-

expression. However, the act of listening to music through personal music players

prohibits this because even the people directly beside one another can be listening to

entirely different pieces. Rather than using the music as a facilitator of social interaction,

they remain entirely separated in their private worlds.

Benjamin quotes the poet and theorist Charles Baudelaire‟s description of the perfect

Flâneur:

“To be away from home, yet to feel oneself everywhere at home; to see the

world, to be at the centre of the world, yet to remain hidden from the world –

such are a few of the slightest pleasures of those independent, passionate,

impartial natures which the tongue can but clumsily define.”2

So, the Flâneur‟s meanderings keep him “independent” or “hidden” from others within

the city, yet, he feels at home even whilst in the city. This privacy enables him to find

and maintain a comfortable space within the bustle of 19th century Paris. The Flâneurs

and listeners of MP3 players share the ability to be able to feel as though they are in

some form of isolation or private space whilst within the public spaces of streets and

shops. However, the Flâneurs are also “passionate” and “impartial,” implying that they

observe the city, even if they do not judge. Can the same be said for members of our

society who use such portable music devices?

Although the original purpose of the device was to provide a portable and compact form

of musical entertainment, now earphones act like earplugs that block out stimuli from

the actual sounds of the environment. It is not surprising that refusing one of the sense‟s

stimuli makes individuals less aware – the danger of crossing a road while listening to

music is only one habit cautioned against. And, as truthful as it is that restricting the

senses can be unsafe, there is also a key ontological issue with this new, restrictive,

mode of being. How the world is apprehended through our senses and what the world is

1 Redmond, S., UK Market Statistics, <http://www.eraltd.org/_attachments/Resources/yearbook.pdf>

[Accessed 30/08/10] 2 W. Benjamin, The Arcades Project, (Belknap Harvard, 1999), p.443

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in reality both rely upon our full involvement with it. Some people are affected by

sensory impairments, but if they use their senses to their full potentialities then they

perceive the world in a way true to them; it isn‟t the same as electing to hide aspects of

the world from you. Whereas, through choosing to listen to MP3 players, sounds from

the environment are replaced and these people lose a more essential connection to the

world surrounding them.

For the Flâneur there is no restriction on the senses. Benjamin writes, “The city splits for

[the Flâneur] into its dialectical poles – it opens up to him as a landscape, even as it

closes around him as a room.”3 Consequently, he understands the public space through

the contrast between it and the private space, which he is able to create due to his sense

of being at home. It is both the public and private working together and against one

another that allow him to achieve a comprehensive picture of the city.

Benjamin quotes Dickens as stating that he needed the streets and their noises because it

was “as if they supplied something”4 to his mind and aided his writing. Dickens

recognised that the streets were a valuable source, and he and the Flâneur alike were

able to find inspiration in them because of their approach to wandering and observing.

Rather than remaining detached from the city to make use of this external perspective as

a spectator, today‟s „plugged-in‟ citizen makes use of his privacy to zone out and lose

contact with the city, meaning that for him the streets‟ inspirational qualities are difficult

to access.

For Benjamin, it is not only that the Flâneur gains understanding and inspiration from

the city; he is also an indicator of consumerism. This is partly through an understanding

of the city‟s trends and the consumers whom he examines. Benjamin writes that “the

Flâneur is the observer of the marketplace ... He is a spy for the capitalists, on

assignment in the realm of consumers.”5

Although this may imply a negative association, the importance is that the Flâneur has

obtained this knowledge because he is so involved in the city he roams. It would be very

hard to deny that those who are „plugged-in‟ to MP3 players are not consumers with the

release of new generation devices that are purchased in order to store increasing amounts

of digital tracks. However, whether they could give any relevant information about the

physical marketplace they roam while listening to their chart hits is perhaps more

doubtful. Again, they lack the Flâneur‟s ability to have a comprehensive connection

with, and therefore understanding of, the city. While the contemporary wanderer may be

an avid music listener and perhaps posses key insight into the music industry (or may

not), they gain their knowledge whilst choosing to remain abstract from the city and

their physical grounding in the world.

3 Ibid., p.417 4 Ibid., p.426 5 Ibid., p.427

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Moreover, the Flâneurs represent consumerism through their own mode of being,

because the form of knowledge they attain is developed through low labour (their

wanderings), which over large spans of time gains value. In the manner which Benjamin

describes it, even their knowledge becomes a sort of commodity; although whether or

not they put it towards any function other than their own understanding is questionable.

These two types of citizens from different centuries seem to share the ability to feel as

though at home, or in isolation within the public city streets. Yet, there is a key

distinction, which leaves the „plugged-in‟ citizen in many ways abstracted from the city

in which they roam. They become detached from the sounds of their surroundings, and

subsequently the surroundings themselves to the extent that their own physical and

social context becomes almost irrelevant.

Towards the end of Benjamin‟s chapter is a comment that may shine a light on why

citizens have become this way;

“The jostling crowdedness and the motley disorder of metropolitan

communication would … be unbearable without … psychological distance.

Since contemporary urban culture … forces us to be physically close to an

enormous number of people … people would sink completely into despair if the

objectification of social relationships did not bring with it an inner boundary

and reserve.”6

Perhaps this provides some form of excuse for the 21st century MP3 player-listener, for

if this „motley disorder‟ was evident in the late 19th

century surely it is worse now.

Citizens in the 21st century have developed an ability to create inner boundaries, and

listening to music devices serves to make these isolations increasingly more powerful. If

this is to be understood as a form of self-protection, enabling them to enter into the

bustling city, to what extent should we worry about those who decide to „plug-in‟ and

abstract themselves from society? Nevertheless being „plugged-in‟ is becoming a typical

way to roam the city in the 21st century.

Katie Reid

University of Dundee

6 Ibid., p.447-8

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When I think of the music of Claude Vivier a certain memory comes to mind - last Hogmanay, my flatmate and I dancing crazily (at five in the morning) to Bouchara, one of Vivier’s final pieces. Unsurprisingly, we managed to drive everyone else out of the room in a matter of seconds. As a first time listener to the music of Claude Vivier, you might be forgiven for imagining the music to be a bonus feature from The Lord of the Rings films. It certainly isn’t surprising to find that Howard Shore was a fan of Vivier; the music is epic in a similar way to the fantasy trilogy, with singers chanting in made-up languages, wailing vowel sounds, funereal bells and chimes, and empty fifths. Perhaps, being a massive Tolkien fan, this is what drew me to Vivier’s music originally, but there is undoubtedly a lot more to his work than a slight resemblance to a film score. There was another, slightly more macabre, reason why I developed an interest in Vivier. On the night of March 8th 1983, Claude Vivier was stabbed to death in an apartment by a young male prostitute he’d picked up earlier that evening in a bar. He was found five days later, with 45 knife wounds in his body. His last work lay open on the table, a dramatic monologue in which he describes a journey on the metro through Paris, during which he becomes attracted to

a young man. The music breaks off abruptly following the line “then he removed a dagger from his jacket and stabbed me through the heart”. This is perhaps the strangest part about the whole event - the unlikely and frankly disturbing premonition of his own murder. I confess that, in my mind at least, this controversial murder does add a sickly kind of glamour to Vivier’s life and has unfortunately caused Vivier to be remembered chiefly for his demise, rather than for his compositions.

Vivier was a French-Canadian born in 1948 in Montreal and adopted by a Canadian family. Not knowing his parents haunted him but also inspired Vivier to create his own imaginary world where he could invent his own origins. He was brought up in a variety of convents in expectation that we would join the priesthood. This early education created a love of ritual that is clearly expressed in his music which is abundant with bells of various natures and often a voice singing in a chant-like way, usually in a made-up language. According to Vivier, his inspiration to become a composer came in a moment of revelation at a midnight mass. However he was eventually asked to leave the priesthood because of “inappropriate behaviour” – Vivier made no secret of the fact that he was gay.

Why You Should Listen to Claude Vivier by Anna Shucksmith

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...obsessed with the idea of self,

searching for his roots and

yearning for new experiences.

He enrolled at a Canadian conservatoire, but he had a huge thirst for new experiences. His music already displayed a very different sound-world from anything else being composed around him. In 1971, he left Canada and spent three years studying in Europe, mainly in Utrecht and Cologne, where he was taught by Stockhausen. His early works contain many influences from Stockhausen’s music despite the initial dislike of his student (apparently Vivier always wore an ancient sheepskin jacket which Stockhausen hated because of its rather interesting smell).

In 1974, Vivier returned to Montreal but he still had a yearning for travel and adventure and two years later he set out on a trip to the East. He spent a long time on the island of Bali where he found the music particularly stimulating and interesting. His compositions from this time contain many references to Eastern music, such as Shiraz, his solo piano work which depicts a day following two blind musicians through an Eastern city. This influence continues to be apparent in all of his later work.

On his arrival back in Canada, he began to develop an interest by in French spectral music being composed at the time by Grisey and Murail, using elements of this in his own work, Lonely Child being a prime example of this. In 1982, he moved into a rather seedy area of Paris and started composing an opera. One year later he died aged thirty-five. If he had lived longer I am convinced that he would have become at least as well

revered as his teacher. Vivier wrote some of the most beautiful and most moving music that I have ever heard. His music is very different to all other contemporary composers and yet so simple that it is remarkable that he is not one of the giants of modern music. I’m not sure whether this is because he died so young or because his death completely overshadowed his short life. Or perhaps it is because his music was so different from everything else being composed at the time. He is unclassifiable and doesn’t fit comfortably into any particular school of modernist writing.

His music is rarely played, although it is currently experiencing something of a comeback, partly because of new music ensemble Psappha which has performed several of his works. In February 2008 they performed his final work, Glaubst Du an die Unsterblichkeit der Seele (‘Do you believe in the immortality of the soul?’) Many of his scores are very difficult to read mainly because he didn’t always make his

intentions completely clear. Once this problem is dealt with however the music itself is not nearly as difficult as many other

contemporary pieces.

The critic and musicologist Harry Halbreich summed up Vivier in the following way: “His music really resembles no other, and he puts himself right on the fringe of all trends. His music, of a direct and disruptive expression, could bewilder only those hard-hearted people who are unfit to categorize this independent man of

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genius. Claude Vivier found what so many others have sought for, and still seek: the secret of a truly new simplicity.”

Vivier comes across as an atypical

modernist composer, obsessed with

the idea of self, searching for his roots

and yearning for new experiences. He

apparently thought of himself as a sort

of musical Marco Polo. The piece

Bouchara, which is probably my

favourite of his works, is named after a

city in Uzbekistan and was discovered

by Marco Polo. Although my reasons

for initially listening to Vivier are poor

to say the least, I have certainly gained

a lot from listening further to his music.

I would encourage everyone to go onto

Spotify immediately, type in ‘Claude

Vivier’ and listen to Bouchara. Lie back

and close your eyes, and think of the

East as Vivier thought of it.

Anna Shucksmith

Royal Scottish Academy of Music and

Drama, Glasgow

Is there anything potentially as powerful as the combining of the musical and the visual? Whether this concept is realised in ballet and other types of dance or in operatic terms, introducing dialogue, there can be something magical about more than one art form happening at the same time. As a composer, I am very inspired by cinema too by the way in which films are constructed and the form or manner in which a narrative is presented. Lately, I have been troubled by the quality of music in many of these films. It is true that music in film is generally considered to be a servant to the picture, whereas in days gone by this servant would, at times exhilaratingly, rise to be an equal to its master. Now it seems as if the servant has been battered into submission.

This is more than a little disappointing when we consider that composers such as Prokofiev and Shostakovich wrote for film in its early days. This bright beginning was continued in a golden age in Hollywood in the 1930s, when composers including former child prodigy Erich Wolfgang Korngold wrote scores that were rich in melody and motivic writing, an operatic approach to the problem of composing for screen. Composers like Bernhard Herrmann, Jerry Goldsmith and then John Williams would follow, maintaining the high standards that had been set. Nino Rota and Ennio Morricone brought their talents to America too whilst continuing to contribute to the cinema of their native Italy. Each of these composers was master of their craft. Furthermore,

The Subservient Future of Film Music by Peter Longworth

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they each possess distinctive compositional voices and are gifted melodists. Over recent years however, with notable exceptions, melody seems to be taking a back seat to harmonic shifts as a more subtle approach to the creation of moods and setting. Whilst this is not necessarily a problem, it is however the removal of an aspect of the music. Moreover, the harmony used in much film music today sounds rather generic, and soundtracks - particularly for action movies - have become increasingly dull, heavy in percussion and low in imagination.

Perhaps the problem lies not with composers but with higher powers. Use of temp tracks (music from another composer(s) that the director has fitted to a film to give the composer in his employment an idea of what they want the new music to sound like) is surely part of the problem, thus a stylistic expectation has been placed on the composer before he has even started writing. Gone are the days it seems where a composer can forcefully defend his music to a director.

Another great pity is that some of the more individual and interesting voices in the industry seem to be cloning themselves again and again, their mystique and allure wearing off film by film. This is perhaps owing to the ludicrous schedule some of them seem to undertake, made possible by the fact that scoring films has become a very fast process indeed; so fast that, in order to get a score finished to

deadline, composers are now generally required to farm out orchestrations to others. This sharing of work, whilst a necessity, is surely another factor in the removal of the composer’s identity from the film music. I find it telling that the soundtrack for The Lord of the Rings trilogy, arguably one of the more

impressive film music achievements of recent times, was composed over a period of around two years, whilst

many feature films are often scored in just two months! This lengthy time period allowed composer Howard Shore to create a vast musical world for the film and to do all his own orchestrations to great effect.

My fear is that film music is slowly becoming a redundant art. The most powerful cinema experience I have had of late was watching the Italian film, Io Sono L’Amore (I Am Love) which constructed its soundtrack entirely from pre-existing symphonic and operatic music by John Adams. Immediately noticeable was that the music, as pieces of standalone art, had a strength to them that is rarely if ever matched in purpose-written film music today. The music in Io Sono L’Amore gives a weight to the picture, and sometimes almost consumes it, driving the film to an electrifying conclusion. Using exclusively Adams’s work also gave the score a strong sense of unity. That is not to say of course that unity is always a necessity. The diversity of the music (which ranges from Ligeti to Johann Strauss) in Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey is in part responsible for the impact of the movie, as is his employment of Penderecki and Bartok

The harmony used in much film

music today sounds rather generic...

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in The Shining. This technique is still very much in use today, though still largely in independent film. Indeed it is within the world of independent film that another worry for film composers can be found, namely film without any music whatsoever. Recently, with his acclaimed films, Hidden and The White Ribbon, Michael Haneke has shown that unbearable tension and fear can be created with good technique and complete silence, dispelling the theory held by many that music is a necessity

for suspense. Still, despite films such as these, it is in independent films that composers can be most inventive. It is to these films that composers of ‘art music’ tend to come as Prokofiev once did and, just like Prokofiev, they ignore Hollywood. Is music in mainstream cinema dying a slow subservient death, or is it merely waiting for someone to come along and shake it up again?

Peter Longworth

Guildhall School of Music, London

The Influence of LSD on Psychedelic Rock

by Karin Meyer

he 1950s saw the development of rock and roll and its subculture, or genre,

psychedelic rock. This form of rock was strongly dependent on and related to

hallucinogenic, or psychedelic, drugs. Psychedelic drugs became popular as recreational

drugs during the mid-twentieth century in America and the United Kingdom, and these

drugs partly resulted in the formation of the musical genre known as psychedelic rock. I

will here examine the extent to which these drugs influence the music and the people

involved in psychedelic rock and thereby determine the music and the genre‟s

dependency and relatedness to psychedelic drugs. I will especially focus on the relation

between the musical structure and effect of psychedelic rock (specifically the artists The

Beatles and Jimi Hendrix) to psychedelic drugs.

The term „psychedelic‟ is derived from the Greek words psyche (mind) and delein (to

manifest). Thus, it refers to a manifestation of the mind, altering one‟s perceptions and

thought processes; being under the influence of a psychedelic drug can be described as

being in a state of trance or meditation. The effects of these drugs which musicians

sought were its ability to change one‟s mood and sensory perception and its ability to

„expand‟ one‟s mind into a transcendental or even religious realm.1 Psychedelic rock is a

form of music that is associated with the psychedelic drug Lysergic Acid Diethylamide,

known as LSD or acid. The psychological effects of LSD on a person, for example, have

been described as dechronicization (changing one‟s perception of time),

1 <www.saps.gov.za/drugs/lsd.htm> [Accessed 09/09/10]

T

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depersonalization (a sense of merging with one‟s community or surroundings) and

dynamization (objects moving and changing form).2

Psychedelic drugs, especially LSD, were being used as recreational drugs by certain

rock musicians and followers of the hippie culture which formed part of the psychedelic

rock subculture and youth movement of this time. Allan F. Moore describes the music of

this genre as featuring “extended blues-based improvisations, surrealist lyrics with

performances often loud and accompanied by lavish light-shows.”3 It exaggerates

sensory perception through the loud music and extensive light shows, intended to evoke

or enhance the drug-induced state. On recordings of the music, the volume and density

of the sound created the necessary sensory overload which contributed to a drug-induced

state. The music could thus be described as an aural „trip.‟

Psychedelic drugs infiltrated the hippie culture and the message to „tune in, turn on, drop

out‟ became a popular code for the drug use. The Beatles and Jimi Hendrix were both

known for their heavy usage of LSD and marijuana, especially during the peak of

psychedelic rock.4 As many psychedelic rock musicians regularly used drugs for

recreational purposes, these drugs were often involved while they were composing or

performing. They would then either try to imitate the effects of this trip in their

composition or use the trip for inspiration. According to David A. Noebel, the New York

Times reported that during the time of psychedelic rock‟s fame, the lyrics of songs had

pushed into the world of recreational drugs,5 defending this statement by using examples

from songs by The Beatles. The album „Sergeant Pepper‟s Lonely Hearts Club Band‟ is

seen as a psychedelic album; band member Ringo Star sings “I get high with a little help

from my friends” – lyrics which are interpreted as referring to the experience of getting

„high‟ on drugs. This album also contains the song „Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds‟ -

the initials of the title spelling out LSD and advertised on posters with the initials

underlined: a seemingly obvious reference.6 Jimi Hendrix‟s album „Are You

Experienced‟ (1967) focuses on the drug experience, featuring the song „Purple Haze‟,

the name given to a specific brand of LSD. The lyrics of this song refer to the experience

of using LSD: “Purple Haze was in my brain/ Lately things don‟t seem the same/ Actin‟

funny, don‟t know why/ „scuse me while I kiss the sky.” Some of the lyrics also attempt

to create a sense of timelessness, one of the sensations that one supposedly experiences

2 Hicks, Sixties Rock: Garage, Psychedelic and other satisfactions (Illinois: University of Illinois Press,

2000) p. 110 3 Moore, „Psychedelic Rock‟ in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Vol. 20, ed. Sadie

(London: Macmillan Publishers Limited, 2001) p. 527 4 Moore, The Beatles: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, (CUP, 1997) p. 21 5 Noebel, The Beatles: A Study in Drugs, Sex and Revolution, (Oklahoma: Christian Crusade

Publications, 1971) p. 12 6 Ibid., pp. 1 – 20

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when using psychedelic drugs: “Purple Haze all around/ Don‟t know if I‟m coming up

or down/ Am I happy or in misery/ Whatever it is, that girl put a spell on me.”7

Michael Hicks links the dechronicizing effect of LSD with various rhythmical and time-

related elements in psychedelic songs, such as the extended lengths (such as „That‟s It

For the Other One‟ by The Grateful Dead), the hypnotic repetition of simple melodies,

and the bass ostinatos creating a sort of stasis of time and the changing metres within

songs. He explains that many songs in psychedelic rock create a „wall‟ of

undifferentiated sound or a block of sound which relates to a person‟s loss of her sense

of self and a sensation of becoming part of her surroundings. He uses Hendrix‟s‟ „Purple

Haze‟ as an example of this, explaining that the use of large volumes of sound, extensive

use of reverb in which the focus of the sound is lost within the reverb, and the use of

feedback contributes to a sound which is not focused on a particular melody but rather

which creates a sense of a wall of noise. He also explains that musical elements within

psychedelic rock, such as the guitar pitch-bend (use of vibrato in the guitar through the

whammy-bar) and the manipulation of timbre into fluid and different sounds could relate

to the effect of dynamization which LSD has on the human psyche, as these sounds

relate to dynamization and changing forms.8

In her essay „Progressive Rock and Psychedelic Coding in the Work of Jimi Hendrix‟,

Sheila Whiteley provides an analysis of „Purple Haze‟, stating that the lead break of this

song juxtaposes two „realities‟: One, the high notes and great volume of sound moving

against the continuous steady rhythm, and two, Hendrix‟s high and exhilarated guitar

solo moving against a continuous bass beat. This could effectively juxtapose the reality

of everyday life with one‟s own reality when under the influence of psychedelic drugs.

Whiteley also argues that the simple and repeated motif of the melody line produces a

mesmerising or trance-inducing effect, which relates to the state of mind when one is

experiencing a trip. Consequently, this song has many elements which imitate or could

enhance the effects of psychedelic drugs.9

It can be argued that psychedelic drugs have affected the music and people involved

with psychedelic rock to such an extent that the existence of this genre would not be

possible, and would not make sense, without the presence of psychedelic drugs,

especially LSD. What distinguishes the drug use in psychedelic rock groups from other

forms of rock and roll is the fact that both musicians and audiences used drugs as part of

the performance and reception of musical works. The music enhanced the trips that the

audience members experienced while taking these drugs and influenced the musicians to

translate their experience of being „high‟ into their performance. The drug therefore

played a central role in how psychedelic rock was performed and received. The music of

7 Whiteley, ‘Progressive Rock and Psychedelic Coding in the Work of Jimi Hendrix, Popular Music,

Vol. 9/1 (1990), pp. 37 – 60, p. 41 8 Hicks, pp. 110 – 115 9 Whiteley, pp. 40 – 48

Page | 13

psychedelic rock displays a large amount of references to the experience of taking

psychedelic drugs; the tone of instruments, their volume and pitch. Smaller effects, such

as simple, repeated melodies creating a trance-like atmosphere or an uncertain rhythm

within the music creating a sense of timelessness, also relate to the experience of these

drugs. Psychedelic drugs have infiltrated the world of psychedelic rock and affected the

performance, reception, lyrics and music to such an extent that this genre would be

meaningless, and possibly even non-existent, without the involvement them.

Karin Meyer

University of Stellenbosch, South Africa

Fundamentals of the Suzuki Method

by Pippa Macmillan

Dr Shinichi Suzuki

(1898-1998)

developed his

approach to learning a musical

instrument in the 1940s in post-war

Japan. The effects of the war had

shattered his country but he believed in

the potential of music to greatly enrich

children’s lives. Suzuki called his method

the Mother Tongue approach. Seeing

small children speak the Japanese

language fluently, he realised this was

the perfect educational method;

constant exposure, imitation, repetition

and parental praise created an

environment allowing children to learn

easily and naturally. He believed that the

same approach could be used for

learning music and he was convinced

that every child had the ability to make

music if given the appropriate training

and learning environment.

In his book Nurtured by Love, first

published in 1969, Suzuki explains his

belief that musical talent is not inherited

or inborn, but must be learned and

developed. He was also concerned with

educating the whole person through

developing their musical ability. Suzuki

strongly believed that people become

who they are as a result of their own

specific environments and found that it is

the earliest stages of childhood that are

most critical to their development.

Consequently, the Suzuki approach

supports the idea that from birth, babies

should be exposed to fine music, which

will be absorbed and subsequently help

teach them the language of music.

Suzuki’s method thus suggests that

children listen to recordings of the music

that they will later learn, giving them the

freedom to play all of their pieces by ear.

Suzuki found that it was perfectly

possible to teach children from an early

age, around three or four years. This is an

ideal time to begin lessons as the child’s

aural abilities are already fully

developed. Imitation is an important

part of a young child’s life - they learn

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many skills through imitating parents and

older siblings, so using imitation to

demonstrate sounds and physical games

on a musical instrument enhances the

child’s ease of learning. Young children

are capable of learning a huge amount of

material as long as it is presented to

them in a way in which they can process

and remember it easily. When past the

early stages of learning the instrument,

children no longer learn by

demonstration, but continue to play from

memory.

Recently, a lot of research has been done

into the value of parental help with all

sorts of learning, from homework to

music practice. Parental involvement is

crucial to the success of the Suzuki

approach: parents attend lessons and

make notes on what is to be practised at

home and how it is to be practised. The

Suzuki teacher will be able to aid the

parent in helping their child with music

practice at home, even if the parent has

never had any musical training, as is

frequently the case.

Many aspects of today’s society are

geared towards instant gratification with

the increasing immediacy of all types of

media and information. Encouraging

children to engage with the long-term

activity of learning to play a musical

instrument teaches them the value of

working consistently and methodically

towards goals – perhaps performing in a

concert, mastering a piece they

especially aspire to play, or playing in an

orchestra. An important part of the

Suzuki approach, and one which sets it

apart from traditional teaching methods,

is the emphasis on review. Children keep

practising their entire repertoire, and

work on review pieces each week in

lessons and at home. This means that

new skills, once learnt, are repeated and

refined, becoming more fluent and more

musical. The Suzuki repertoire is devised

so that each piece introduces one new

technique whilst also calling upon

techniques already learnt so they can

continue to be worked on. This is called

step-by-step mastery, creating a logical

and systematic progression through the

repertoire, preparing the child to

successfully learn each new piece with

ease. Keeping up old repertoire has

value in other areas too.

Suzuki children learn all their pieces by

memory, including all past repertoire –

this builds and develops memory until

children can perform an hour or more of

music at a time. This development of

memory and the concept of reviewing

skills can also help children in other areas

of their education, being beneficial to

many other spheres of learning. Suzuki’s

aim was to develop the whole child – he

wanted to help every child find the joy

that comes through music-making,

unlocking each child’s potential and to

develop their sensitivity as human

beings.

Pippa Macmillan

Royal Academy of Music, London

Pippa Macmillan is the only Suzuki

double bass teacher in the UK. She has thriving teaching practices in London and Cambridge. Her website is: www.pippamacmillan.co.uk

Page | 15

Why Music Education Fails to Honour Music: Towards Analysis and

Understanding

by Catherine M. Robb

here is no room for education in music. Music‟s subjectivity squirms avoidingly at

the grasp of an objective educative stance. There is no room for music in education.

Music has no place in our curriculum; how ridiculous that we should expect creativity,

expression, introversion, to occupy a space in our quest for knowledge. Music‟s progress

is static, we will always marvel at its ineffability.

So what is it that we deem as educative when we indulge in our musical subjectivity?

We are taught how to play the violin: how to stand with two feet planted firmly but not

too firmly on the floor, to hold the bow in the correct manner, how to quench that bow

with the most technologically advanced rosin, to finger passages in a certain way so as

to hide the workedness or any effort provoked while labouring over the sonata, how to

clean the instrument with the right varnish, to pack that instrument in the most

fashionable case, to decorate that case with photos that remind you of a time when you

weren‟t playing scales, to go home at the end of a practice session feeling like you‟ve

achieved something new.

We are taught how to compose: how to analyse someone else‟s work, looking for

structure, harmonies, instrumentation that we can adopt and manipulate as our own, how

to lay out your A3 manuscript and dot the bass clefs in the correct manner with the right

lead thickness of pencil, how to come up with ideas – we must be creative now: invent a

matrix, invert it until you have lost all sight of where it began, find inspiration, do what

your teacher told you to. Or rather how to download a copy of the latest compositional

software, how to manipulate that software‟s buttons – the computer is now your hollow

string quartet, who needs the violinist with her bejewelled case and unjustified sense of

achievement. How to find the next commission, how to enter the competitions asking for

obscure instrumentations, how to struggle to get your compositions played. To keep

those instrumentalists happy.

“The leading cause of Minimalism is reduced budgets for rehearsal and reduced

budgets for ensemble size ... How can a person be concerned about atonality

versus tonality when the real question is how do you get anything played?

Whatever it is.”1

We are taught the history of music : how vast and disquieting that one academic term

and a multiple choice questionnaire is all it takes, from prehistoric bone flutes to

1 F. Volpacchio, „The Mother of all interviews: Zappa on Music and Society‟, Telos, Vol. 78 (1991),

pp. 124 -37, p. 125

T

Page | 16

contemporary musical deconstruction, human existence confined into ten weeks. How to

revere Mozart, Shostakovich (didn‟t he endure traumatic circumstances),

monumentalising Tchaikovsky‟s romantic aphorisms. How to ignore everyone else. See

how our dominating musical canon and the reification of the „work‟ is disintegrating

before our eyes? How to be feminists, neo-Marxists, gender theorists, look at how we

manoeuvre history.

Where is the music in this check-list of information? At what point do we take care to

dwell on value, responsibility, and understanding? There has to be more to a musical

education that on the surface seems to overlook the very music it aims to elucidate.

“Musical understanding, musical cultivation with a human dignity that means

more than mere information content, is tantamount to the ability to perceive

musical context, ideally developed and articulated music, as a meaningful

whole.”2

If we are to find an education that takes care of our music and its place within the wider

human condition, it will be through a process that enables us to question and place value

on analysis and understanding of the music itself.

Analysis and understanding should thus be seen as a central component of all types of

music education within conservatoires and universities as well as primary and secondary

schools. The term „analysis‟ should not merely be used to describe the objective,

impartial and professionalised analytical methods employed by academics, but also the

way in which we develop the personal involvement needed to harbour a deeper

understanding of pieces of music and their contexts. Cook writes, “when you analyze a

piece of music you are in effect recreating it for yourself; you end up with the same

sense of possession that a composer feels for a piece he has written.”3 It is this sense of

ownership, accountability and value that is at the heart of any type or method of analysis

and should be vital to any music education.

Through the manifestation of analysis in this broad sense we can come to understand

music in both its dialectical forms; as objective and intellectual, or as a subjective

interpretation of meaning. Our objective understanding will aim to explain the rational

and intellectual reasons for why things are, taking into account what caused them and

how they are constituted.4 However, when we consider music as a musical enigma rather

than a scientifically analysable object, an overly complicated mathematical or formulaic

2 Theodor W. Adorno, „Little Heresy‟ in Essays on Music, ed. Richard Leppert, (University of

California Press, 2002) p. 318 3 Nicholas Cook, A Guide to Musical Analysis, (Oxford University Press, 1994) p. 1 4 Roger Scruton, The Aesthetics of Music, (Oxford University Press, 1999) p. 222

Page | 17

analysis is insufficient and it is often more appropriate to understand how we as rational

beings relate to, make sense of, and find meaning within the music.5

To relate to something is “to feel affectively involved or connected to [it],”6 while

meaning is described as “having intention or purpose ... amenable to interpretation.”7

These descriptions and requirements for understanding seem to be as much about the

music itself as they are about how we are involved and where we are found within the

musical gestalt. When we understand music in this way we come to understand

ourselves – our place within the music and our own subjectivity. As Cook summarises,

“when we study music, we aren‟t just studying something separate from us, something

„out there‟: there is a sense in which we are studying ourselves, too.”8 Edmund Husserl

conceptualises this subjectivity within his phenomenon of the Lebenswelt, which, in its

simplest form, explains how we construct our own understanding of the world in relation

to our own consciousness, perceptions, emotions and beliefs. Heidegger writes that to

understand something in this way is not the acquiring of knowledge about it, but is the

realisation of its, “own possibility – that of developing itself (sich auszubilden),” and

that through our understanding of it the object reaches its potential - “it becomes itself.”9

In finding the underlying idea behind the music and consequentially its meaning, we are,

whether explicitly or not, realising our involvement with the music's inner development

and becoming of itself. Adorno writes that “to comprehend music adequately it is

necessary to hear the phenomena that appear here and now in relation to what has gone

before an, in anticipation, to what will come after,”10

while Scruton is of the same

opinion; “it is surely the capacity to hear music as growing in and through itself...that is

the central experience.”11

Analysis allows for us to explore underlying motivic ideas,

gestures and structures that “tell us something about the way we experience music,”12

and “points to a living principle of development within the music.”13

With the ability

and willingness to participate in musical analysis comes the ability to grasp the

development of meaning within the music, which subsequently encourages us to find

meaning within ourselves.

Should we accept the resignatory attitudes of those students who do not want to learn

anything other than how to play their instrument? Should we ignore the mass scoffing in

the cafeteria, complaining that the new postgraduate curriculum includes analytical work

that will inescapably highlight not only the music‟s inner development but also their

5 Scruton, p. 223 6 OED Volume XIII 7 OED Volume IX 8 Nicholas Cook, Music: A Very Short Introduction, (Oxford University Press, 2000) p. 73 9 Martin Heidegger, Being and Time: A Translation of Sein und Zeit, (Blackwell, 1974) p. 118 10 Adorno, p. 319 11 Scruton, p. 236 12 Cook (1994), p. 219 13 Scruton, p. 434

Page | 18

own? Should we be content with those instrumentalists who continue to ignore the

importance of analysis and thus ignore their wider responsibilities? Although the higher

education institutions will do their best to include courses on analysis or the philosophy

of music, their efforts are already thwarted if not previously dealt with at the most

fundamental level, from the first encounter that children have with their instruments.

It seems as if there is copious space for education in our musical practice. It can be

found in our attempts to understand the inner development of the music and in the

realisation of our personal involvement with it. But this is only possible if we begin to

question the current and well-accepted teaching methods that are served to us on a daily

basis.

It is only possible if we begin to find room for music in our education.

Catherine M. Robb

University of Glasgow

The X Factor – The Death and Re-birth of the

Entertainment Genre

by Joel S. Summers

I’ll open up this discussion with a

personal question, if you’ll excuse the

invasion of your privacy: what

happened to you when you read the

first ten letters at the top of this

passage? Did you experience an

overwhelming sense of nausea and

existential discomfort? Perhaps your

heart leapt in anticipation of some

controversial aside at Simon Cowell

and his disheartening attachment to his

chest hair? Or – probably not, I

imagine, considering you’ve read this

far – did you simply skim over

everything on the page as if it didn’t

exist at all, barely even noticing the

name of something which causes in

you, quite literally, no emotion or

physical state whatsoever? As this

piece shall go on to examine, The X

Factor divides opinion wherever

opinion exists, but unfortunately for all

the wrong reasons. As I’ll hopefully

illustrate, the franchise is probably

more indicative of our era’s perception

of music and the arts than any other

example we may hope to find in the

media; for whilst The X Factor may

have killed the popular entertainment

genre in some ways, it has most

certainly revitalised and reinvented it

according to its own terms.

It’s Saturday night, and I’m sat in front

of the television with what is probably

the biggest bowl of crisps you’ve ever

seen. A flatmate mentions something

Page | 19

about cholesterol, and enquires as to

whether I’m considering the damage

I’m doing to my heart by coupling salty

snacks with an extended period of TV-

related inactivity. Unfortunately, those

concerns wash over me entirely, for I

know that the next two and a half

hours of programming will reduce

anxieties over my wellbeing to

momentary white noise. From the

surrealist opening sequence that has

little awareness of galactic scale, to the

employee who sweeps up the

inevitable confetti shower at the end of

at least one musical number per

episode, every aspect of The X Factor is

a grandiose and overblown spectacle. It

is garish, driven by an insatiable and

unashamed lust for commerciality, and

it is a sickeningly self-indulgent vehicle

for judges and contestants alike. But

most ironically, and most importantly

in terms of this article, it is more out of

sync with reality than anything the

media is currently offering us.

Moreover, and contrary to popular

opinion, The X Factor, I strongly

contend, is about as inaccurate a

commentary on our society and our

perception of what is entertaining as it

gets. This format, you ask yourself as

yet another Lady Gaga number is

rendered slightly better than its

original, can’t genuinely be how we

choose to judge talent. Can it?

But let’s bear in mind something vital

to the issue, and this is that the music

industry is almost as saturated as the

fats in my Saturday night bowl of

Doritos. I’ll not deny that The X Factor

has generated a disheartening amount

of ‘stars’ that didn’t exactly shine very

brightly; a faux-operatic quartet who

did unpleasant things to already quite

unpleasant songs, and the winner of

the first series spring to mind

immediately – the latter in particular

was a man so forgettable I’ve already

forgotten what was bad about him. But

every era in music and entertainment

in general, has produced more than its

fair share of decidedly average

material. So what makes the products

of The X Factor so lamentable to so

many?

If we’re going to wax lyrical about the

vast amount of terrible music – or

perhaps we could even stretch to

terrible entertainment – in the

consumer’s domain at the moment,

please let’s not forget the age we are in

now. If there is a huge quantity of

substandard music doing the rounds at

present, disposable, devoid of emotion

and unextraordinary in nature, a

contributing cause is certainly that

there is a much bigger quantity of

music itself in existence now than there

ever has been before. Technology can

make momentary fame monsters of us

all, and social networking and mobile

media can give someone as

commonplace as me as good a chance

of launching into the ‘big time’ as

someone far more musically interesting

and adept.

Page | 20

So yes, maybe there is a pretty

powerful tide of unoriginality that we

are being subjected to every time the

radio tunes in or when the Christmas

number one is achieved by someone

who’ll be debuting as Buttons at a

pantomime near you very soon. But

what of the other side of the coin, the

many talented and dedicated

musicians, both in and out of pop and

rock music who are writing and

performing some of the most exciting

work of our time? If they truly are

devoted to the practice of creating

meaningful music and art for their own

sakes, their fans will come to them, and

to complain of a lack of recognition –

and inevitably, financial recompense –

will sound somewhat hypocritical.

These artists will, I hope, forever retain

their niche quality, for there’s nothing

wrong with niche. Those who complain

that The X Factor has transplanted the

heart of music with a sack of dollar bills

– that it caused the ‘death’ of

entertainment – are making a grievous

error in assuming the majority of the

public consent to the dominance of, or

even care about such a musical and

entertainment endeavour.

It might be opening a neomarxist can

of worms to suggest that until the

socioeconomic conditions surrounding

how we discover, gauge and fund

talent in the arts changes, the format

Simon Cowell now seems to have a

monopoly on isn’t likely to vanish

without a trace. However, by

suggesting that the ‘realness’ of a

reality television series like The X

Factor truly runs parallel to what we

genuinely expect from realism, by

implying that we do take the

unearthing of musical talent through

such a medium seriously, we are only

encouraging the enterprise that so

many are keen to bemoan. The X

Factor has indeed given a rebirth to

how we perceive entertainment; it has

absorbed, transfigured and generated

an entirely new concept of what it is to

be ‘entertaining’, ‘talented’, and

certainly ‘marketable’. Whether you

believe the entertainment genre

needed such a rebirth is another

matter, but I can’t help feeling like it

was an inevitable progression.

In any case, Simon Cowell is leaving our

shores temporarily to take the format

to the USA in 2011. The comparisons of

our own home-grown version to the

stateside equivalent will inevitably be

pretty disparaging, and dare I say some

jealousy and patriotism for its humble

origins might arise. If this critique

hasn’t convinced you of the purist,

unmitigated entertainment that The X

Factor can offer, be patient for a few

months and see if its next incarnation

does. Just be wary and hold on to your

sense of realism, and your sense of

humour, when the show makes its

return, as your sanity may depend

upon it.

Joel S. Summers

University of Glasgow

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A Revival for Shape Note Singing

by Brianna E. Robertson

hape Note Singing is often said to be primitive and a dead tradition. However, in the

last three decades it was rediscovered in small southern communities in America

and returned to its origins in Britain and Europe. Therefore, was this style really

primitive or a unique break from previous music traditions, which today, musicians can

better understand?

Shape Note was born out of the European reformation and was brought to New England

in the eighteenth century. Though originally intended to improve congregational singing

in the church, “the idea of getting together to sing was so exciting it couldn‟t be kept

within the bounds of the church, so singing schools started to pop up in secular

locations.”1 It spread to the South where it remained “an integral part of the social life of

the community.”2 Charles Seegar commented in his article that “there are those among

us ... who evidently regard the practice of this type, as the work of ignorance, error, or,

perhaps lack of musical feeling.”3 Early critics were appalled that conventional

European rules of harmony at the time were not at all present in Shape Note music: “the

style of the three-voice shape note settings ... are outrageously heterodox, violating such

basic centuries-old prohibitions.”4

However, the father of American choral music William Billings announced “a

declaration of independence from traditional limitations in music.”5 The original

tunesmiths6 were not likely to be men of great musical ability, but this was not necessary

when composing for the people. John G. McCurry, editor of the Social Harp explained

the process thus: “after you have written your tenor, then commence your bass by

placing your notes a proper distance from the tenor, and be careful always not to place

any note within one degree of the corresponding note in the other part ... After having

written the bass and tenor, commence the treble by observing both parts already

written.”7 The conventional harmonic process of „preparation-dissonance-resolution‟

was not required in this style of composition, and unconventionally the melody is in the

tenor and both women and men are welcomed to sing the tenor if they wish.

1 Molly Adkins speaking at the Portland Sacred Harp Convention, filmed by Oregon Art Beat (2008)

<http://www.opb.org/programs/artbeat/segments/view/726> 2 Keith Willard, A Short Shape Note Singing History (2009)

<http://fasola.org/introduction/short_history.html> 3 Charles Seegar, Contrapuntal Style in the Three-Voice Shape-Note Hymns, Musical Quarterly, Vol.

26, Number 4, pp. 483-493 <http://mq.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/XXVI/4/483.pdf> p. 487 4 Seegar, p. 484 5 Seegar, p. 492 6 The original tunesmiths referred to were the first composers of the „First New England School‟:

William Billings, Daniel Read, Nehemiah Shumway, Stephen Jenks, and Supply Belcher. 7 Seegar, p. 484

S

Page | 22

In singing Shape Note, there is no expectation to sing well, beautifully or even in tune.

In fact these aspects, which play a major role in most styles of singing, are not

encouraged. What many newcomers to the tradition comment on are “how the people

belt out”8 the songs. This harsh sound can be unappealing to a listener foreign to the

tradition. However, most have commented that only when one becomes involved in the

singing can one truly appreciate the beauty. A man confused by this harsh vocal singing

style asked at a Southern Shape Note convention, “do you want to sound like a bunch of

untutored Southerners? And everybody shouted, „Yes!‟”9 This style of singing is not to

suit any audience, but suits the performers, and it is here where the beauty lies. The

traditional hollow square, with the singers turned in to face one another is another

distinct practice of this music and allows the people to sing to one another rather than for

any other purpose: “the lack of an audience - Sacred Harp singers sing for themselves,

not to perform ... appeals to many.”10

Much like the folk song tradition of early

Scotland, this style of singing “is learned through oral tradition and varies among

different regions and families,”11

though some singers do refer to the printed books.

Another similarity to Scottish music is the presence of a leader who will stand in the

middle of the square to lead the singers, much like the minister leading the congregation

in Gaelic Psalm which is still a prominent tradition on the Isle of Lewis.

The original Sacred Harp‟s collection of songs can be split into four categories, the

oldest of these being Folk Tunes, which travelled from the British Isles and were passed

aurally from generation to generation. It has been suggested that they would have been

lost if not for “the tunesmiths of the Sacred Harp, who saw themselves as collectors and

revisers of music that was „in the air.‟”12

The next category is the Psalm Tunes, which

derived from “the extensive tradition of church music in northern Europe.”13

Revivalist

Tunes which were written during the Great Revival period (1780 – 1840) feature lively

tempos that rise to a stirring climax. The largest category in the original Sacred Harp

was the Fuging Tunes that were often “older songs from the other types put into the new

style by popular demand.”14

The lyrics to most of these songs are rooted in the Christian

faith but explore issues of a rather more human nature; “they differ from modern

religious poetry in that they often address difficult subjects such as sin, doubt, death and

8 Rich Barlow, In Song, Different Faiths Find Harmony, The Boston Globe

<http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/01/26/in_song_different_faiths_find_harmony/> 9 Matt and Erica Hinton, Awake My Soul, documentary trailer (2007)

<http://www.awakemysoul.com/> 10 Rich Barlow, In Song, Different Faiths Find Harmony, The Boston Globe 11 FAQ section of http://www.mcsr.olemiss.edu/~mudws/faq/#6 by Warren Steel. The question asked

was “Is this folk music and why do they use books?” 12 Alan Lomax, „White Spirituals from the Sacred Harp,‟ in Recorded Anthology of American Music

<http://www.newworldrecords.org/linernotes/80205.pdf> (1977), p. 3 13 Alan Lomax, p.3 14 Ibid.

Page | 23

judgment.” 15

The lyrics to these songs are very powerful and though today a number of

people may not follow the Christian faith, they “find their own meaning in the words.”16

In the nineteenth century there were a number of published Shape Note song books

including the Harmonia Sacra and The New Harp of Columbia. All of these books share

the Shape Note system, the raw open harmony and the difficult humanistic subject

matter despite being based in the Christian faith. Composers writing today in the Shape

Note tradition often choose to set lyrics of a secular nature rather than religious, perhaps

an evolution that will encourage those from other faiths to join singings. However, in

most personal accounts of non-Christians who attend singings, they are not deterred by

the old songs and in fact enjoy these just as much: “many singers who are not overtly

religious admire the strong language and imagery of the poetry.”17

When looking at pieces which have been inspired by Shape Note music such as

Southern Harmony by William Duckworth, it appears that they lack something that only

singing in the Shape Note tradition captures. The melodic lines and harmony created by

Duckworth may be beautiful, but it is “the belting out” of the innocent open harmonies

of the Shape Note tunes that are so powerful. Recent recordings of Shape Note singing

by groups such as The Anonymous Four18

sound too beautiful and lose the raw

spirituality and passion which comes hand in hand with the tradition. Also, recordings

violate a performance practice unique to this tradition; recorded music is intended for an

audience, while Shape Note singing is to be performed for the pleasure of oneself.

For many years in the American South, special times in the year were set aside for a

whole community to join together for an annual singing day. When the revival began in

the 1970s, these Southern communities were joined by thousands of singers from the

North and from other countries who started to become familiar with the tradition, which

had remained hidden in the American South for so long. They would sing from nine in

the morning until noon, after which they would all enjoy a filling lunch together before

returning to sing in the afternoon. These special days have been recreated by Shape Note

singing groups around the world. Our own city of Glasgow even has its own growing

community lead by folk group Muldoon‟s Picnic. They lead many workshops in various

churches around Glasgow each year that anyone is welcome to join. In this style, it is the

sense of community that keeps the mechanics of this performance style well oiled.

Many believe that it is only when one gives everything they have that the spirituality of

the Shape Notes music is revealed. It has such an addictive quality that today thousands

15 Warren Steel, FAQ section: “Is it church music and are they hymns?”

<http://www.mcsr.olemiss.edu/~mudws/faq/#6> 16 Joanna Lampert, a practicing Jew, attends the Shape Note singing in Christ Church Unity, NY every

month. Discussed with Rich Barlow, Boston Globe. 17 Warren Steel, FAQ section: “Is it church music and are they hymns?” 18 Sacred Harp hymns are sung by the Anonymous Four in their album „American Angels‟ (2004)

Page | 24

travel for miles to attend singings. What the American South has preserved is a singing

style so passionately unique that thousands of people wish to keep this tradition alive

and present in our twenty-first century world.

Brianna E. Robertson

University of Glasgow

The Harpsichord and the Piano: Relatives or Rivals?

by Kirsty Walker

n this essay I will consider the ongoing dispute that sees the piano rival the

harpsichord. This dispute concerns current performances of mainly baroque keyboard

music, with issues arising where, for example, some people believe that the music of J.

S. Bach must, definitively, be played on the instruments of his time, whilst others are

more lenient. The harpsichord is at the centre of this debate - rather than the clavichord

and other noted keyboard instruments - as it was, in general, favoured over these

instruments and used more extensively. I will address some of the issues relating to the

harpsichord, paying special attention to some of the reasons for it falling out of fashion

due to a preference for the developing pianoforte in the eighteenth century, its revival in

the early twentieth century, and possible future courses for the instrument.

It became popular in the eighteenth century to perform music from before that period in

a variety of contexts. This was largely influenced by an increase in publications of such

music along with the writing of some of the earliest histories of music. Unsurprisingly,

as this older music was increasingly played and performed questions began to emerge

regarding its performance. A stylistic awareness began to develop that is now taken for

granted by musicians, that certain performing styles are appropriate to certain parts of

the repertory and to the music of distinct composers. For the harpsichord, the style of the

majority of music was generally free, and the inclusion of improvisations and

embellishment prevalent, with skill in this area of performance a requirement. The issue

of the harpsichord‟s demise and replacement by the pianoforte is that this new

instrument could offer something that the harpsichord could not.

It is generally known that the harpsichord was regarded as lacking in expressiveness by

musicians of the time, and it was the desire to compose keyboard music with an

expansive dynamic range and greater control over the balance of parts and textures that

ultimately lead to the pianoforte‟s development. It was in 1698 that Bartolomeo

Cristofori conceived the idea of a pianoforte, that is, a touch sensitive „hammer

I

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harpsichord,‟ although it was not until later that it was made popular. Dynamics and the

use of dynamic markings is one of the main characteristics differentiating piano music

from music intended for earlier keyboard instruments. It is interesting to note however,

that the freedom baroque music allowed meant that even when the early dynamics of

piano and forte were introduced, there was the option to include or exclude these

instructions at will and preference, as these were, at this stage, classed as a type of

embellishment. Another change influenced by, or perhaps to accommodate the newer

keyboard instrument was the transformation from being principally, if not solely an

accompanying instrument, to having ever an increasing and significant solo repertoire.

Over time, it became widely believed that there was no benefit in performing Classical

or Romantic music on period instruments. From a current point of view, as historically

informed performances have become an important part of musical culture, it must then

be asked why and when there was this shift in opinion. Musical instruments have

changed but not necessarily improved thus offering something different. It is now widely

agreed that the gradual changes in instrument construction, including the development

from harpsichord to piano, and changes in the training of musicians have produced

instruments, playing techniques and styles that compliment the music composed in

recent times, rather than those of earlier compositions.

The harpsichord was the first of the early instruments to undergo a revival when a new

interest in the instrument emerged at the start of the twentieth century, and this largely

contributed to the early music renaissance in general. Of course, the harpsichord, like

many other early music instruments has never been extinct enough to be resurrected as

such, for it continued to lead a slightly erratic life as a concert instrument throughout the

nineteenth century, appearing from time to time in historically informed „early music‟

performances by innovative virtuoso pianists such as Moscheles. However, on the

whole, harpsichord construction and playing disappeared from widespread use during

the Classical era.

During the early twentieth century, Wanda Landowska introduced the harpsichord back

onto the concert scene, and increased the popularity of the instrument. The harpsichord

she used from 1912 and for the rest of her life was a modern version, heavily influenced

by the modern grand piano and made by The Pleyel Company. Other harpsichord

manufacturers followed suit and also evolved this modern harpsichord until the mid-

1900s, when the „authentic‟ or „Bach‟ form became the preference for most German

harpsichord builders. The harpsichord revival reached its end in the late-twentieth

century, when harpsichord building was finally believed to have investigated and

achieved all it could, introducing new versions, restoring old versions and replicating

them to the best extent possible. However, historically informed performances are still

ongoing, and there does remain an opportunity for the continuing progress of the

harpsichord‟s revival.

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An important issue debated throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries has been

the limitations of performing music on the means of production in use when a composer

wrote that piece of music, as life today is very different to that of our ancestors.

Consequently, music, even if restored to perfection can never have for us precisely the

same meaning as it had for the people of an earlier time. Because of this, the role of

music from times past and historically informed performances of such music on

historical instruments can only ever be symbolic, never absolute in their acts. Another

argument that has arisen exists in the controversy over preservation of the instrument.

The dilemma weighs the potential benefits of restoration against the destruction of

original evidence, which could be important to future generations.

What worries me with regards to historically informed performance is the extent to

which a performer relies on academic works before or perhaps rather than their own

musical intuition. The authentic performance movement especially emphasized

historical scholarship to obtain a firm viewpoint on original performance practices to

then apply to specific works. In Kivy‟s 1995 work Authenticities he states, “The driving

force behind the historical performance movement is the desire to collapse performance

into text.”19

Of course, this is not always the case, and a modern performer can still add

certain independent elements to a performance. Also, the benefit of this study is that it

can assist in performance where markings may not be helpful enough or give the full

picture of techniques and aspects of performance that may have been taken for granted.

Would a listener be more likely to identify with a piece of music by limiting themselves

to the means a composer had available when he wrote the piece? Should this be the

proper course of action?

As for future prospects, although at present all major conservatoires offer instruction in

harpsichord, basic training in harpsichord may become part of conservatoire curriculum

for pianists. Modern players are used to playing almost exclusively what the composer

or editor has notated, whilst players of early music would have expected to improvise to

some extent: improvisation is perhaps the most neglected aspect of the historically

informed performance movement. Whilst the piano, since its birth, remains to be a

central instrument in most Western musical genres, the harpsichord has experienced a

much more unsettled life. After experiencing a surge in popularity over the last century,

it is clear that there is still a place and a purpose for the harpsichord in music today, and

that future courses for the instrument remain possible.

Kirsty Walker

University of Glasgow

19 Kivy, Authenticities: Philosophical Reflections on Musical Performance, (Cornell University Press:

Ithaca, 1995) p. 276

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REVIEWS

ELISION ENSEMBLE: ‘OUT HERE: Map of

Impossibilities’

6th

December 2010, Kings Place, London

On the 6th of December 2010 I attended ELISION’s ‘OUT HEAR: Map of Impossibilities’ concert at Kings Place, London. I knew ELISION, from their recordings, as an ensemble marked by incredible technical ability, great energy and devotion to the music they believe in. As a contemporary composer I attend a lot of new music concerts and was particularly excited to experience this ensemble first hand. The performers certainly did not disappoint, delivering dazzling performances of incredibly difficult music.

ELISION specialise in the performance of music that broadly falls into a movement, within contemporary music, generally referred to as ‘New Complexity.’ This movement began with and continues to find its most prominent voice in composer Brian Ferneyhough (unrepresented in this concert but featuring heavily in concerts both here and throughout London in February and March). The music is so-named because its defining and unifying characteristic is its communication through notation that is, simply put, complex. The composers favour very slow tempi with unusually small note values, which give the music a frenetic and dense look on the page. Much of this music features extensive extended techniques and is decidedly atonal.

The most enthralling piece on this program was Rebecca Saunders’ to and fro for Violin and Oboe. It was a lovely, subtle and atmospheric piece that benefited hugely from the amplification which brought out not just the music, but the physical process of producing the notes. The inevitable micro-inaccuracies of bowing, the clicks of the oboe, and even the breath of the players became a real and enthralling aspect of the work. The violin and oboe stood on either side of the stage, facing each other. And the amplification reflected this in the projection of the sound (the oboe came mostly out of the right speaker, the violin the left). The hall was small enough to maintain the spatialised nature of the ensemble - which was integral to the piece - without destroying the unified nature of the whole. Single sounds and fragments of melodies gently appeared and receded, something brought to light here in the violin, echoed there in the oboe. Patterns and repeated notes made this work a breath of fresh air surrounded in a concert of other pieces that aimed to do so much more, but accomplished so much less.

Richard Barrett’s interference (which opened the concert) called for a contrabass clarinet player who also vocalised and played the pedal bass drum. Again, the amplification of the piece was interesting and exciting, especially in bringing the breath and physical struggle of the performance to the sonic foreground. The bass drum was

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EQ’ed in such a way that it sounded more like a gun-shot than a bass drum, entirely (and almost painfully) heard in the ear with none of the usual resonance in your chest. Unfortunately, it was here that much of the innovation of the piece ended. The work opened with the bass clarinettist sometimes ranting, sometimes half-singing to himself, madly jumping through every register of his voice and unintelligibly singing half-words and mixed-up sentences. This sounds like a very exciting, or at least striking, sort of texture, but I have started to wonder just how many times composers think reworking the Berio vocal Sequenza No. 3 will continue to return fresh and exciting music. Berio, of course, was not a member of the ‘New Complexity,’ but it is from his Sequenza and through the line of pieces such as Ligeti’s Adventures, that this texture and style of singing has emerged. The problem for composers now is that style is so historically established that it is about as disconcerting as hearing somewhat say ‘damnit’ on T.V.

It also seemed to be that the drama of the piece – something composers such a Berio, Ligeti and Ferneyhough considered and incorporated into their music flawlessly – was misjudged. In interference the player had a huge (and static) instrument to hang onto while also needing to be in position to play a pedal kick-drum. No instrument can convey madness in the same way as the human voice can and the result, here, was that the contrabass clarinet felt like a weaker cousin of the voice throughout the work. When the player started interpolating vocalisations into the contrabass line, it was the voice that gave the music intensity and drama, while the clarinet was made to sound all the more static and helpless. And if this was true of the clarinet, how much more so of a pedal-kick drum? The attempts to make this drum part of a complex texture verged on sonic humour, as the bulky single-stroke nature of the instrument made it sound like a child’s toy. It is not that these instruments were initially deployed as they are all interesting in their own way, but instead that the general dramatic nature of the music was left so unfulfilled and unrealised by the eventual details of the composition.

I felt the same way of a one minute long work for clarinet and optional cello (there was a cello for this particular performance) made up of small fragments and half-thoughts that were ‘discussed’ (albeit briefly) by the two instruments. This piece, in and of itself, afforded no criticism. However, the composer described the piece in his program note like this: “it may be too much to imagine this piece as an homage to Berlioz’s ubiquitous, painfully expressive linear awkwardness.” There is obviously a wide gap here between the means and goals of a work and the resultant music – the real offence is the pretention the composer uses to try and bridge the gap. Aside from Saunder’s piece, the music of the concert was struggling under this tension. Consider the goals of another piece performed at the end of the first half: “*this piece+ attempts to create a uniform, monolithic, static sound world from frenetic, multi-developmental, highly-defined pieces of gestural odds-and-ends.” Brilliant performances and dazzling technical prowess, along with assured technical mastery by the composers, were all heavily expended on tremendously difficult and time-consuming music that just wasn’t very moving to listen to.

What made this so tiresome was the apparent deployment of such intellect, creative energy, practice, technology, and musical talent of the performers toward music that

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aspired to be – and successfully was, it must be said – one great gigantic static. Compositionally, ‘static’ is not an uninteresting texture when it is a layer from which order and meaning, either intended or implied, can be drawn by the listener – or perhaps as a veil dropped over an elusive idea. In this instance however, it was the primary and exclusive aim of the music. The result was a concert filled with impressive feats of performance, but generally lacking in character, contrast, or communication. Instead of the composers, it was the personalities, dedication and efforts toward expression of the musicians in ELISION that I have really come away with. That and Saunder’s haunting fragments: first here, then there, then gone.

Aaron Holloway-Nahum

Guildhall School of Music, London

Highlights of Glasgow’s MINIMAL Weekend

15th & 16th October 2010, City Hall & Old Fruitmarket, Glasgow

Glasgow Concert Halls’ weekend of minimalism was launched

with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra’s (SCO) ‘New Romantics’

concert on the evening of Friday 15th October, with a programme showcasing works by

Charles Ives, John Adams, and Ingram Marshall.

John Adams’ Wound Dresser is a very careful and perceptive treatment of Walt

Whitman’s poem of the same title. The text, so striking on its own (I … cleanse the one

with a gnawing and putrid gangrene, so sickening, so offensive…) was catapulted into

another sphere of hideousness with Adams’ thoughtful scoring, and, on the 15th of

October, Christopher Maltman’s inspired performance. The futility of the protagonist’s

situation was given a desperate edge by the baritone, and the effect was asphyxiating.

Here was an example of a consummate musician at work, not just an instrumental

technician. During sustained periods of rest in the vocal part he remained absolutely in

his role, and his subtle reactions to the evolving orchestral atmosphere were almost as

powerful as the artistic command of his voice. Unfortunately, the acoustic of City Halls

was almost too voluptuous for the grit I wanted to hear, and the exaggerated

resonance of the orchestra occasionally swallowed Maltman’s perfectly articulated

delivery.

The rest of the SCO’s programme was not quite as convincingly executed. That said,

there were some glimmering moments. The third movement of Charles Ives’ Three

Places in New England in particular was extremely evocative of its subject: “We walked

in the meadows along the river, and heard the distant singing from the church across

the river. The mist had not entirely left the river bed, and the colors, the running

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water, the banks and elm trees were something that one would always remember.”1

The individual parts were magical, yet knitted together they didn’t fit properly, which

like real memories, that spin around one’s head, merged and jumped from one to

another, not quite logically. It was extremely effective, an interpretative challenge that

the SCO rose to spectacularly.

Following this, in the Old Fruitmarket, was the much-anticipated live arrangement of

Brian Eno’s landmark album Apollo, paired with For All Mankind, a documentary of the

Apollo 11 space mission to the moon. The film, directed by Al Reinart using reels of

NASA footage, seemed to be an organic extension of what was clearly Eno’s vision

when writing his album. Credit must be awarded to Jun Lee for his talented adaptation

of the music for live performance. None of the atmosphere was lost in translation, if

anything it was augmented and the marriage of sound and film was exquisite.

The highlight of the weekend was the Smith Quartet’s performance of Steve Reich’s

Different Trains. The work was conceived after Reich’s retrospective meditation on the

countless train journeys he made as a child shuttling between L.A and New York after

his parents divorced. At the same time in Europe, the non-Aryan masses were being

herded on to very different trains, and with these thoughts, the work was born. With

instrumental lines echoing the contours of spoken text, woven over the energy of train-

like rhythms and, in the second movement, the clearly identifiable air-raid sirens, the

piece was poised to haunt and invade the darkest corners of the soul. The Smith

Quartet did not inject any over-sentimentality into their playing which would have

severely injured the credibility of their performance, and indeed Reich’s carefully

constructed concept. Instead it was a completely non-indulgent performance of Reich’s

unforgiving portrait of history, leaving one cold and cheerless. Possibly the most

traumatic concert going experience I have had to date, but absolutely worth it.

Minimalism can be seen as a ‘way in’ to classical music for the wary and also a ‘way

out’ for those of us who are classical music snobs to the core. As such, news of the

weekend’s festivities reached far and wide, and the most diverse audience I have ever

been part of flocked to enjoy the experience. If this is what pulls crowds in, event

organisers have been seriously missing a trick here. I hope the success of this ‘minimal’

weekend persuades them to put on more events like this, and perhaps encourage more

wide-spread awareness of the other great musical feasts Glasgow has to offer.

Annabel Fleming-Brown

University of Glasgow

1 SCO Concert Programme Note by Svend Brown, quoting Charles Ives, 15.10.2010

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