Month: December 2020

We can’t make a silence—but we can be quiet. Music like John Cage’s “4’33”, where ‘silence’ opens our ears to the smaller, un-orchestrated sounds that always surrounds us, makes me picture layers of sound. Say I’m attending a loud concert (hard to imagine, I know). Audible to me is the sound of the music. Beneath that layer of sound are things close to me that I perceive when the music is quieter: people around me (again, what a concept), my own voice, maybe loud noises from outside. If the musicians, myself, and everyone else stayed very quiet and still, I would hear yet another layer: people’s clothing and shoes as they shift slightly, my own breath, and distant sounds from outside the space. There is yet other layer, which Cage describes hearing in the quietest place of all: his own blood and nervous system at work.

I wonder why Cage had musicians ‘perform’ the silence during “4’33” rather than having an empty stage. Why have a score that says only Tacet? To me, it seems like he’s trying to direct the listener’s awareness. If I see instruments and performers on a stage, I assume a performance is underway, and I listen more attentively. Cage is saying “this is music” by situating silence in the mental space that organized sound usually occupies. This means that perception is as integral to making music as sound if not more so.

Although they exist in my surroundings, I can’t perceive the quietest sounds when the band plays. Now riddle me this: if a loud band playing means I can’t hear, cannot perceive the person beside me breathing, is that sound not functionally silenced? My directed attention can make ambient sound into music; Cage’s chance music, in my (admittedly very limited) understanding seems to rely on the listener being open to the sounds they hear. Could the opposite be true? Can I render sound ‘unmusical’ by ignoring it?

At the very beginning of this course, I said that noises are sounds that we find unpleasant, unstructured, or uninteresting. (As an aside, after some of the music I’ve been exposed to this term, I now disqualify ‘unstructured’ from my definition.) Again, perception is what distinguishes sound from noise. If you will agree with me on that point (which you may not), I would like to add one more layer of perceived sound to the concert (which I’m attending in my most implausible fantasies); this layer is, at times, the loudest of all: thoughts.

SO MANY TIMES have I been at a concert when suddenly I come to my senses to realize that the last five minutes of music were completely lost to such profound musings as “I can’t believe I ate that entire plate of crackers.” When my friends, more in touch with their senses, ask me if I heard some brilliant passage, I say it was brilliant indeed, though in truth I have no memory whatsoever of having heard it. All ‘real’ sounds, that is those that can be measured as waves in the world around me, are functionally silenced, inaudible to me during these moments.

Although I’ve been told that the subconscious is in fact listening constantly to our surroundings, even in our sleep, I’d say that in our conscious awareness at least, there is such a thing as silence. Inattention can, and frequently does, erase sound from my conscious perception. Of course, you might say that imagined sound is still a sound, and I would agree with you. This internal noise sometimes deafens me, having as real an effect on my behaviours and feelings as any ‘real’ sound.

To summarize, there is no totally silent place on Earth; there is always some tiny, quiet sound for us to perceive if we listen, and though we may not listen to any of the sounds around us, we can never truly perceive the “sound” of silence unless we silence our thoughts. The most we can ever do is to turn our attention away from one kind of sound in favour of another.

Further questions that would take more time and research to explore:

• Will it be silent when I die, when my brain no longer perceives or imagines sound?
• If I had no apparatus for perceiving sound, say, if I was born without ears, would I still ‘hear’ my thoughts? Could I use the auditory processing part of my mind to listen to silence?
• In the concert scenario, quiet sounds are silenced by louder ones. Quiet sounds are perceived when louder sounds are…silent. So, when the drummer stops playing, am I ‘hearing’ the absence of drums, and if so, could I imagine hearing a soundscape in which even the tiniest, quietest sounds are silenced?
• If I meditate until I cease to think, could I simultaneously ignore the sounds around me, thereby perceiving total silence? Or is it only possible to ignore real sound by thinking more loudly?

MANDARIN ORANGE PIECE

Peel a mandarin orange.

Share the segments evenly

between yourself and two others.

If one piece remains, put it in your sock drawer and forget.

 

INSTRUCTIONS FOR PLAYING BACH

Begin to play a piece by Bach.

Before the first sound is heard,

begin again.

 

INSTRUCTIONS FOR WRITING BLOG PROMPTS

On the day the Blog Prompt is due,

place your computer

in a mirrored

dome.

Stare at the sun until you are blind.

 

MUSIC FOR THE BUS

Listen to the engine noises on the bus.

Quietly sing a major third above the first note you hear.

As the engine makes higher and lower sounds, continue to listen and sing intervals.

Slide or leap from one note to the next.

Thank the driver.

 

MUSIC FOR THE PEOPLE

Drive through an area where people are walking outside.

Play music in the car.

Imagine everyone you see is dancing

to the music.

 

MUSIC FOR THE CHICKENS

Create a document entitled “MUSIC FOR THE CHICKENS.”

Feed the chickens a mandarin orange

and tell them

anything.

 

MANDARIN ORANGE FOR THE MUSIC

Collect records. Tell your friends you are collecting vinyls.

Read ‘em and weep.

 

My thoughts on performing INSTRUCTIONS FOR PLAYING BACH:

This piece can be taken two ways: the first is that the performer is experiencing the liminal space between playing and not playing. This term, my voice teacher has been encouraging me to sing as though I am continuously searching for what to say next, and this exercise is actually something I do before I start singing, to embody that feeling of anticipation. I’ve recently started doing this exercise where I sing a phrase, re-starting every time I lose focus or a sense of direction. This piece is about how the process of making music begins before any sound is heard.

The second way to interpret the piece is that the performer is procrastinating.

My thoughts on performing MUSIC FOR THE BUS:

This is a great way to practice the kind of listening that John Cage or R. Murray Schafer might encourage, especially when your phone dies on the bus. It’s a liberating way to sing, because there are no wrong notes; all you are required to do is pay attention to the bus and engage with it. “Thank the bus driver” is part of the piece because it is important to be polite to other musicians you perform with.

My thoughts on performing MUSIC FOR THE CHICKENS:

By performing this piece I discovered that chickens don’t like oranges. It’s hard to say whether or not they like music. I had a chicken who learned to play the xylophone because I gave her corn whenever she pecked it. Chickens like corn more than they like music. Did my chicken eventually start to like playing music, or was it still just about the corn? Do I really like music, or do I like it because it reminds me of happy moments in my life? Do I need music like I need to eat?

Bonus piece: MUSIC FOR THE PEOPLE EXCEPT IT’S FOR CHICKENS

(The chickens in this piece are my chickens.)

Glenn Gould made two very different recordings of the Goldberg Variations—between the years 1955 and 1981, his approach to the works changed—but how? This is a closer look at what three different artists have to say about approaching Bach, and more importantly, their evolving relationship with his music.

In October, I wrote that Glenn Gould’s 1981 recording feels more stretched than the 1955 version, and that it sounds as though he is articulating the space between the notes rather that moving relentlessly from one to the next. I think this development goes deeper than having more time to record or just taking a slower tempo to mix things up, because Gould is clearly an intelligent musician and also because of something I came across recently: an episode of my favourite podcast which made me wonder what exactly happens when an artist re-interprets something. Rather than only comparing the differences between the two recordings, I thought it would be interesting to consider what kind of evolution went on between them.

Song Exploder is a podcast in which musicians break down their process for creating a song. It usually focusses on the writing and producing of music, with one exception: Yo-Yo Ma has an episode where he discusses his lifelong relationship with the Prelude from Bach’s Cello Suite no.1 in G major. I was struck by the episode’s similarity to this blog prompt: Ma compares two of his recordings of the piece, from 1983 and 2018. Of his earlier recording, Ma says, “everything is very measured, very competent. It’s good playing but […] this music starts your imagination going: where’s he taking us? There’s this stop in the middle. Has [the person playing] thought about that great interruption?  I’d say, maybe subliminally [but] it’s basically, let’s get this over with, no silence, let’s go.” The execution of the piece is perfect, but I think Ma is explaining that he is not as present in the music as he could be. He says that in his later recording, “There’s more attention to changing landscape, there’s less emphasis on [making] a beautiful sound.” He then speaks to the transformation that took place between one recording and the next. Calling it “an evolutionary process,” he says that “as you experience love and loss and tragedy, you are slightly changed. And as a musician, you make your living from being sensitized to these changes. […] Any experience that you’ve had has to be somehow revealed in the process of making music.” Though at first I thought Ma was saying life experience is the key to playing expressively, I think there is more to it than that; there is a willingness to situate himself within the music.

This year, Veda Hille released her album ‘Little Volcano’ which revisits songs from her career as a songwriter as well as several Bach preludes for piano. During the “Prelude in D,” she simultaneously plays and describes the feeling of knowing a piece so well that she can play it “without concentrating so hard”. As her fingers remember the piece, she says, “I think it’s astounding that a person actually wrote these. They seem more like something you would see under a microscope or dig up from a bed of lava.” She talks about losing herself in the music, experiencing it rather than focusing on executing it. “Bach has become part of the natural world for me,” she says. “It’s a part I can participate in.” Whereas Ma is expressing his life through the music, Hille lets Bach bring “the complexity of the world” to her as she plays. Despite these different approaches, they both reference the value of noticing, of being present in the musical landscape as it surrounds them.

I used to think that expressing myself through someone else’s music was a matter of adding something to it, my own unique sound or perhaps an as-yet-unheard inflection at a key moment. But this is inevitable; already there are as many interpretations of Bach as there are musicians playing him. Taking a slower tempo is not enough. I now think of playing Bach (or any music that isn’t my own) as carrying a kind of dialogue with the composer rather than superimposing my own sound onto the music, or worse, trying to flawlessly execute what he wrote. It is the difference between knowing what comes next and feeling something coming toward me. This sounds pedantic, and seems quite obvious, but it has really made a difference in the way I practice and listen to music. Yo-yo Ma says that “you get someone’s priorities when you listen.” If my priority is just to make a perfect sound, what does that say to the listener about who I am? Finding a place within this amazing music requires us to listen to it; and it is a hazard of being open that if we are truly paying attention, we can’t help but let out something of ourselves in the process. Having heard two very different musicians describe their own evolution through Bach, I think what I heard back in October was really the sound of Gould listening differently, noticing and reacting to some new variation in the landscape as he played it.

For this Prompt, I was supposed to listen to a piece of music over and over again and record my impressions. I found that I was as disoriented in the music after twenty listens than I had been after one, perhaps more so. What I didn’t mention is that I was actually writing down all my thoughts during each listening, thinking it would help me write the Blog Prompt faster. I think this greatly hindered my listening, as I was more focused on thinking about thinking about the music than I was on the actual hearing it. I also mentioned that I had a better time repeatedly listening to a song while I danced to it.

I decided to listen to Liebst du um Schönheit  by Clara Schumann again without writing anything or trying to disect my thoughts so much. I also gave in to whatever movements and responses I felt compelled to make. Every time I pressed repeat, I decided to say, ‘I don’t have to listen again, I get to’. And what a difference it made. I felt so much expression from the singer (Barbara Bonney, she slays me), and was moved by the push and pull of the accompaniment. I was no longer lost trying to describe the structure of the piece because I was no longer paying attention to it. Rather, I let each phrase wash over me and found myself anticipating the next note, the next breath, the next silence. This is quite like singing a piece that has been freshly memorized; I find that if I try to think of what comes next, I lose track of where I am, so the key is to always be only one tiny step ahead of myself, letting the next thing come along just in time.

The biggest difference is that I enjoyed the music. I re-read my first attempt at this Blog Prompt and was slightly worried to notice that I didn’t once mention liking or even feeling anything. The closest that description comes to any emotion was to say this or that part “interested” me. It was a very cerebral listening experience, and one that I see little point in repeating. I feel I understand music so better and more deeply if I’m not trying to analyze it so much as to connect with and internalize it. And I must always, always dance!

(I’d also like to take this moment to mention that Great Balls of Fire by Jerry Lee Lewis has profoundly impacted me and I am physically unable to listen to it without smiling idiotically and pressing ‘replay’ immediately. Most mind-bending experience from MUS 116, and that’s really saying something.)

Strangely, I’ve been paid more to play music during the pandemic than I ever did before! I’ve been very fortunate to have a steady gig as a choral scholar recording weekly live streamed services on Sundays. However, the fact that I have this position at all is largely because I have been connected with the cathedral, singing services and other concerts without pay over the past 2-3 years. It would be so much more difficult for me to earn money or even have somewhere to perform if I weren’t already established in that choral community. I started singing at the cathedral as a chorus member at Christmas and New Years concerts. This year, with a very small choir, there is no room to invite young and less experienced collaborators to sing.

Established artists may be able to get creative selling merch and tickets for exclusive Zoom meet-and-greets, but for those without an already-dedicated fan base, I think the pickings are slimmer. Gone are gigs at restaurants, retirement homes, and markets (although the Root Cellar has a fabulous plexiglass cage in which they exhibit a lone jazz guitarist).  Throughout this time, I’ve seen dedicated artists come up with wonderfully creative ways to continue encouraging each other, including backyard talent shows, weekly song-writing challenges on social media, and the now-ubiquitous livestream. I’ve been impressed by how many opportunities are still available to me. However, I do think I’m quite privileged in that sense. It would be far more difficult to find spaces to perform if I was still relatively new to the ‘scene’, and especially difficult to make money.  The ‘people’ side of the gig triangle, is my experience, is often what unlocks the paid gigs. It’s a challenging time to find collaborators to help you break into a more lucrative circle.

Now, I think it’s important for those lucky folks who are able to continue making a living as musicians to set a precedent by placing value on the work of less-known artists. Opportunities to do this are endless. My voice teacher has inspired me this past week by having me temporarily take over his daily haiku Instagram account. It’s a small thing, but it gave me so much courage to be creative in a new way. I’ve been buying prints from all my friends who are visual artists, and buying Christmas gifts from individual creators, often people that I know.  Recording artists can collaborate with young people in their communities. As you say, create the scene you wanna be in. I would add to that, nurture the scene that nurtured you; I doubt there are many musicians who don’t owe some of their success to good mentorship and recognition from someone with more influence than they had.