mmm007 Sunday, March 11, 2012
7th music meeting (March 11, 2012) minutes (mmm07):
Attendees:
tENT
Rob
Ben Opie
Matt
(cameo appearances from Amy)
Rob arrives w/ a copy of Wire w/ a flexi-disc enclosed in it & some .
Ben Opie arrives laden w/ things to show the packaging of, etc..
Ben shows laser-etched records by STYX & others. Pretty amazing. Then he plays some of Lee Renaldo's "From Here to Infinity" LP wch has long silence at the beginning & lock grooves & white splatter vinyl.
Ben shows a Nurse with Wound record that has etching too.
Rob plays the "Cook It" flexidisc by Duke Robillard & Jimmy Vaughn.
Ben shows MSBR single that can be displayed as a spring-mounted sculpture.
Ben talks about how there were mistakes in the 3rd edition of Thom Holmes' "Electronic & Experimental Music" bk that Ben pointed out to the author & about how those mistakes are STILL in the 4th edition.
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Ben Opie has provided us w/ the letter he wrote regarding corrections to Holmes' bk.
I know I'm a geek but I find this fascinating!
Begin forwarded message:
From: Ben Opie
Date: March 13, 2012 7:49:30 PM EST
To: one's own thoughts
Subject: Re: mmm07
On 3/13/12 6:32 PM, one's own thoughts wrote:
7th music meeting (March 11, 2012) minutes (mmm07):
ALSO, I remembered a few more things that I left out of my minutes:
Rob brought a 6-pack (Thanks Rob!) & Ben brought a bottle of Pinot Noir (Thanks Ben!).
I asked Ben something like: "Do you think you'll get better as a sax player?" & he told us that he's still not as good as Coltrane, that Coltrane was a technical giant or some such. This is going to prompt me to relisten to Coltrane b/c even tho I've been listening to his music for as much as 4 decades I must admit to finding it mostly dull despite all the accolades it's gotten!
Ben talks about how there were mistakes in the 3rd edition of Thom Holmes' "Electronic & Experimental Music" bk that Ben pointed out to the author & about how those mistakes are STILL in the 4th edition.
Pasted below is my message to the editors.
I think Ellery may've gone to the same high school as me. I just read that Ellery grew up from age 2 in Baltimore, so you are probably correct about this. Yeah, I'm pretty sure I corresponded w/ him briefly long ago.
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To Mr. Holmes and his editors:
I have just been reading the fourth edition of "Electronic and Experimental Music". I received a review copy for one of my courses at Carnegie Mellon University. I currently use the third edition, and have done so for several years now. I am generally enthusiastic about the book, and I am happy to see some of the revisions and additions to the current edition. However, I have noted several factual errors from the third edition that are still in the text, and have noticed several more. I would like to point out those things I believe to be in error.
Page 28: Messiaen's "Oraison" is described as being for Ondes Martenot and orchestra. I believe this to be incorrect, it is for an ensemble of Ondes Martenot(s). The editor should also note the typographical inconsistency here.
Page 108: John Cage's "Concerto for Piano and Orchestra" should read "Concert for Piano and Orchestra". It is a one letter difference, but a tremendous difference in meaning.
[tENT interpolation: During mm 07 I brought out my score for Cage's "Concerto for Piano (prepared) and Chamber Orchestra (in 3 5s)" (as it's marked on the score) - more commonly known by the name Ben uses below. I also talked about the difference in meaning between "concerto" & "concert" wch, as I understand it (& I cd be wrong), is that "concerto" is Italian for concert & that, in the case under discussion, Cage chose to Anglicize the word from its more common music world Italian usage. Why he'd do this I can only guess (since at 7:04AM I'm not really in the mood to research it further) but I suspect that he decided to title it in the language he spoke &/or to reduce the word by one 'unnecessary' letter. Perhaps it was in a similar spirit to Ben Opie's calling his group "Watershed 5tet" instead of "Watershed Quintet" (please correct me if I'm wrong Ben!). There is a "Concerto for Prepared Piano and Orchestra", but that is not the work being referenced.]
Pages 276-277: Xenakis' "Metastasis" was composed in 1954 (premiered1955) and not 1964 as written. I was happy to see the text removed from the third edition that indicated it was composed with the aid of computers, but the date remains incorrect.
Page 377: in the listening list, "Telemusik" has written "also had a component for live performance". I can't speak with absolute authority on this, but I don't think this is correct. "Kontakte" exists in both tape and tape-with-live-performers versions; "Hymnen" was performed with Group Stockhausen, and also the third region with orchestra. I looked over some references for Stockhausen but haven't found a listing reading that "Telemusik" had a live component.
[tENT interpolation: I looked at the Stockhausen liner notes for the recording of this for the recording that I have of it on the Avant-Garde label & it's referred to exclusively as a tape piece. I also looked at the list of works available from Stockhausen's own publishing source online (wch I downloaded while S was still alive) & see not mention of a "live" component except for "sound projection" wch might imply live manipulation of movement between speakers but doesn't necessarily do so.]
Page 435: "Music for Airports" is described as "short pieces of electronic background music"; on page 438 it is described as "synthesizer music", and on page 469 it is described as "This was the first widely known ambient work based on purely electronic tonalities." I find all of these descriptions to be incomplete at best. "Music for Airports" is not strictly synthesizer music, it also has voices, electric piano, and acoustic piano in its mix. Describing the works as "short" is arguable; the shortest work is six minutes in length. ("Music for Films" on the other hand is made up of short works.) Perhaps most importantly, there is no mention of the compositional basis for "Music for Airports", which is that the pieces are combinations of extremely long tape loops played asynchronously. I believe mentioning that record but not describing its methods is an error of omission.
I enjoy your book and find it to be useful for both its historical and theoretical elements. I hope my suggestions will be taken seriously (and double checked!) in hopes of improving your book.
Ben Opie
artist lecturer, music technology
Carnegie Mellon University
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Matt plays Craig Owens & Boda - 2008 jazz from Wichita, KS, wch is where Matt's from.
Matt mentions that he plays French Horn & that there's very little or no contemporary music for it & Ben points out that Gordon Mumma's a French Horn player so tENT plays a record of Gordon Mumma's piece "Hornpipe" for Matt b/c it has French Horn in it.
At Rob's request we play Amadeo Roldan's "Two Ritmicas" as an early all-percussion piece (1930) published on the same label, Mainstream, that the Mumma piece is on.
As a continuation of the poems-turned-into-songs biz that was started w/ the playing of John Trubee's "Blind Man's Penis" in a previous mm, Ben pulls out some of MSR Company's releases along these lines. He plays the "Richard Nixon" song off the "Beat of the Traps" LP & explains that Rod Rogers aka Rod Keith (Eskelin) was the vocalist & that he's the sax player Ellery Eskelin's dad. I think Ellery may've gone to the same high school as me.
I play a couple of Arthur Lyman cuts in an unsuccessful effort to find some bird calls.
Matt plays John Cage's "Four2" as realized by the vocal group Ars Nova.
Matt plays recording of solo clarinet piece of his that uses words, multiphonics, & the Google translation program.
tENT plays a little of his "Lost in Translation", a piece of his from 1997 that also used a translation program, & shows the text for it around. Ben played on the live performance of it but that part isn't played here.
Rob plays the Hope Harveys song "Italians & Hillbillies".
tENT screens his "Chinese for Celli" movie from 1985.
Rob plays his music video "The Belly Dancers".
tENT screens his movie w/ him as a 'pop' singer in München "Boota".
Matt had previously mentioned Anthony Braxton so we played the fabulous Braxton/Opie Duets CD 2.
Discussing Anthony Braxton operas.
Rob leaves.
Discussion of Pointillism in music in relation to Pointillism in Poetry & Painting.
tENT plays the beginning of his movie of him playing w/ CCMC at the Music Gallery in Toronto in September, 2005.
Matt plays his "Unaccompanied Concerto" for guitar & "raspberries" (meaning the mouth sound).
Matt plays his "Warm Dark Room" ambient electronic piece.
Ben demonstrates iPod electronic apps Bebot, Animoog, Glitchmachine, & Filtatron.
Ben explains that On-Gaku (the name of the Japanese group that makes the claim of being the 1st free improv group - they're from 1958) means Music & that Ga-Gaku means Court Music, etc..
Ben & Matt leave.
Catering provided by Poet/Poem Catering.
A good time was had by all.
to the mm index
forward to mm 08
backward to mm 06
to the tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE movie-making "Press: Criticism, Interviews, Reviews" home-page
to the "tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - Sprocket Scientist" home-page
to the "FLICKER" home-page for the alternative cinematic experience
to find out more about why the S.P.C.S.M.E.F. (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Sea Monkeys by Experimental Filmmakers) is so important
for info on tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE's tape/CD publishing label: WIdémoUTH
to see an underdeveloped site re the N.A.A.M.C.P. (National Association for the Advancement of Multi-Colored Peoples)