12,593. RUDIMENTS, pt. 977

RUDIMENTS, pt. 977

(get over that, Jeez, please)

I've probably listened to the

Goldberg Variations about

120 times. Bach. The thing

about Bach, which you keep

hearing, and which I've always

found so difficult, is the way

it's said to be 'mathematical.'

That's something, from what

I've experienced, mostly said

by non-musicians. In fact, much

of the strange talk about music,

it seems, most often comes from

people who don't play music.

Upon investigation, and upon

breaking down a lot of what I

hear, I find it's never very

complicated  -  all this music

stuff  - even if it's spoken about

as being so. For someone who is

'making' the music, it all falls

into place; simply. With an

intuitive grasp of what's being

done, or what's occurring. When

music is coming together, by

an intuitive manner, I'm not

exactly sure it's 'mathematical.'

There are about 5 things going

on as a piece of music is written,

and the composer, or music writer's

main task, I would say, is to keep

away from that analytical viewpoint

of what it is or is not, and just let'

is come through. For me, for my

viewpoint, mathematics really

just doesn't cover it; and I'm not

real sure what is meant anyway.

A fugue? A repeating, structural

pattern? With its own progressions

and variants along the way. I'd

suppose that's summed up nicely,

in the Goldberg 'Variations,' by

name. makes sense. You can read

'Godel, Escher, and Bach'  -  it's

kind of a book that touches on

this, but you need not come away

convinced. To me, mathematics

decodes itself as Logic, and logic

is NOT music.

-

It's way too easy to systematize

and lock down spiritual and intuitive

things  -  that's the part of music that

kills it. You end up way afar out on

some weird crescent inhabited by

the John Cage lookalikes that pop

up everywhere.There's nothing

wrong with that, and I like Milton

Babbitt too, but sometimes I think

it's past the point of music. The

verve, certainly, is gone. More than

mathematics, I'd think, it's definition.

Decide first what you wish to define

'music' as, and then your case is made.

Harmonics, tonalities, timbre, tempo.

Chord progressions; chord breakdowns.

Trills and fills; notation leaps and

linked variations over into some

scant tempo fluctuations. And, as

complete and finished, what it was

you wished to start out with, has it

been brought back, to a renowned

completion? A sound conclusion?

And what's left for a listener? Is

there something the listener can

take away upon completing the

listen? A musical phrase of note?

All of that's, I suppose. pretty

old-fashioned, but it's the way

I run, and that's really all I can

speak for.

-

Music as theory just bores me.

Musical lectures make little sense;

and I've sat through plenty of them

back in those Morton Feldman

days. John Cage days too. One

time, about 2010, I went to a

Milton Babbitt concert or recital

or whatever it would be called.

His music is very cerebral, paced

with logic (I thought) and quite

abstractedly systemized. This day,

'singing' along with the ensemble,

there was a female singer, one who

specialized in this sort of Babbitt

accompanying. It was quite the

recital; startling stuff. Judith

Bettina was the Soprano who

accompanied. I saw her a few

days later, still impressed, and I

said so. Then I said, meaning by

it to get across my impression

of the music and the reach, 'How

do you get to that? What do you

look for?' (A rather dumb query,

and I'm sure I sounded like a

fool). She said, 'Oh, it's nothing;

it's what I do!' I'll leave it there,

because I don't know what else

to say. You can look her up

and see for yourself, and listen.

Fascinating stuff, all around; and

something sure to alter your own

definitions of what you think

of as 'Music.'

-

Now, this may all be interesting 

for you, or it may not; but to me

it always has been, and I enjoy

it. So, as the best writing is often

writing that directly relates the

experience being told, I'll go

on. My most enjoyable, and

probably 'educational' experiences

were the times I spent in those 

few jazz lofts I used to get to.

These guys were tough, most

often black, downtown jazz

hipsters; the kind of guys who'd

end up playing the Five Spot or

someplace like that, on off-nights,

usually earlier in the week than

the big-feature weekend and 

later-week nights. I guess that's

when the real money was made;

the rest of the time these places

were looser, and these jazz

loft guys, coming mostly from

the old loft district along the

west-teen streets. They were

often really great spaces, and

these guys, if not playing

anywhere else, would come 

straddling in for a jam, or a

groove, session, running long

strings of crazy notes, almost

out of control, but never breaking

any barriers. Just harsh, rabid

jazz  - the sort that was already 

out of style by then. They were

all leftover guys, and they knew

it. The young blacks coming up

were not like them at all, and all

the militant proclivities of the

anger and the politics of the

then -current street turmoils

never really affected them; they

lived in another time, a sort of

syncopated past that was quickly

becoming homeless. Can you even

call jazz 'historic?' Did it ever

really have a past? I don't think;

the sort of thing this jazz was had

no past, it was of the moment,

heck it was of that very day;

popping up, and growing. All

was discovery, and each of these

guys was like a black Christopher

Columbus of the music-waves.

Drifting, probably off course, filled

with fears and mistakes, nonetheless

discovering some of the great and

most vibrant places to come. This

all had and has a different logic,

this particular form of old jazz.

Just as todays 'Country' music

bears little relation to the origins 

of American 'Country' music and

is now all pizazz, flash and appeal,

so too today's 'Jazz' is merely a

product. Mellow jazz, soft jazz,

whatever they call it now on WBGO,

Newark. It's not that stuff at all;

these guys were onto something

completely other. Let me try and

explain it, as I saw, heard, and

witnessed it, in 1968. It was hard

and mean, like the NYC skies

back then were hard and mean.

It allowed for solo magnificence,

like achievement used to allow

for individuals. Now everything's

trying to be ensemble success,

group-form accomplishment, like

no one's any longer allowed to

achieve something on their own 

and by themselves. It was singular,

in that if it was different and

accomplished, it flew fine. If it

crash-landed, that too was

accepted. There were no market

surveys to first determine what 

the 'audience' wanted. That's

bullshit. A guy with an idea, as

isolated musically as it may have

been, went with that idea, because

it was his. There was no mathematics

involved; it was created by listening,

getting the message, reading the info

given, and translating all that

back through the very personal

formats of the composer or the

music writer. That's all shunned now,

and what it gives us are the usual

grab-bags of washed-up dudes

giving us their tainted version of

'American Songbook' crap. Get

over that, jeez, please. Raw talent

and raw beauty come but once

or twice in a lifetime. When you

see it, (or hear it), grab it.
-
There was a composer from Elmira
too, John Tomlinson Griffes. He
died young, during the influenza
epidemic around 1917. I was
never too attracted to his music,
and, thus, I admit, never really
delved into it. Lots of woodwinds
and the airy stuff I can't much
abide. As far as his music theory
and musical ideas, I guess I'll have
to begin checking.The college had
a Griffes Quartet, as a recall, and
Elmira itself had some sort of
swooning local music set who'd
enshrined him highly  -  the tea
and biscuit crowd, the old
families of once-industrial might,
whose gigantic old fortunes and
mansions and homes were, by the
1970's already beginning to rot
away into that echoing decrepitude
that Elmire now still carries. I
hope perhaps the music has
fared better.
-
He was always considered as
part of that 'turn' of the previous
century and later, impressionist
school of music  -  Ravel, Debussy,
etc.,  -  a bit too continental, I
thought, from a time, of course,
when that just pre-WWI world
ethos had not yet coalesced; so
that saying 'Continental' in this
context makes little sense except
to say 'trading musical influences'
or, with the soon to be major wars,
'You kill on your continent, I'll
send over my guys to help!' Little
to do, had that, with airy music.