This is the blog archive for January 2008 arranged in ascending date order.
Richard Friedman, Oakland, CA, works at
Sun
Microsystems, is a Director of
Other
Minds, wrote his first computer program
in 1962 for the IBM
650. It played dice.
He also takes a lot of photographs, composes music, and does a weekly
radio program on KALW called Music
From Other Minds.
The real-time view
from the left edge of the continent.
Two more of our elders have left us.
The NY Times notes the passing of Liam O'Gallagher.
Liam O’Gallagher, an avant-garde sound artist, painter and teacher whose San Francisco studio became an early gathering place for Beat writers and poets in the 1950s, died Dec. 4 at his home in Santa Barbara, Calif.
“Chinatown” (1960), a work by the artist Liam O’Gallagher. He was 90.
The obit mentions his “Border Dissolve in Audiospace” from 1970, a fuzzy, echoing recording in which directory operators are called and asked to look up various numbers.
You can hear it here. It was produced in the studios of KPFA in Berkeley, and I did the engineering. It's also available on an Other Minds re-issue here.
I still remember Liam being a remarkable person, even though I'd lost touch with him over the past 35+ years.
Another is sound poet Henri Chopin,
who passed away on Wednesday in England at age 85. Much of his work is available here.
Some recent videos are here.
When I get older losing my hair,
Many years from now.
Will you still be sending me a valentine
Birthday greetings bottle of wine.
If I'd been out till quarter to three
Would you lock the door,
Will you still need me, will you still feed me,
When I'm sixty-four.
You'll be older too,
And if you say the word,
I could stay with you.
I could be handy, mending a fuse
When your lights have gone.
You can knit a sweater by the fireside
Sunday mornings go for a ride,
Doing the garden, digging the weeds,
Who could ask for more.
Will you still need me, will you still feed me,
When I'm sixty-four.
Every summer we can rent a cottage,
In the isle of wight, if it's not too dear
We shall scrimp and save
Grandchildren on your knee
Vera chuck & dave
Send me a postcard, drop me a line,
Stating point of view
Indicate precisely what you mean to say
Yours sincerely, wasting away
Give me your answer, fill in a form
Mine for evermore
Will you still need me, will you still feed me,
When I'm sixty-four.
When i'm sixty-four
It's that day again. My birthday (1/6/1944). Which means I've reached the magical 64 = 8*8, or 100 in octal. Very strange, considering.
The Beatles song was released in 1967, when I was 23. Looking ahead another 41 years seemed like two lifetimes. Now, it's here. Very strange.
We were planning to celebrate this weekend in a cabin on the coast some 100 miles north of San Francisco, but we never made it out the door. We were packed and ready to leave Friday morning until we heard that the San Rafael bridge was closed and there were major accidents all the way up route 101 due to the severe storm that bounced in from the Arctic. Then the rental agent up in Gualala called to say that the power was out and probably wouldn't come back til late that night or the following day. That's when we gave in and cancelled. A few minutes later the power at our house in Oakland went out and stayed out for 4 hours as it got colder and darker.
Bummed, we shuffled around in the darkness looking for candles and trying to stay warm. But just as were getting into the idea of living by candlelight the power came back. Still, we had to consider "Now what?".
It was quite a storm. Other places had it a lot worse than our 'hood. But the idea of negotiating up highway 1 in such a storm started to seem like an exceptionally bad idea. Most likely the road would be closed due to a fallen tree, boulder, or blown cow.
Which is the story of my birthdays since childhood, when I lived on Long Island (NY). Not only is it bad timing to have a birthday party so soon after Xmas, New Years, Hanukkah, but East Coast winters meant no one would be able to get their cars out of the driveway or down the streets to our house. So after around my tenth birthday when we waited for my friends to appear, table set, ice cream in the freezer and chocolate cake on the table only to have everyone's parents call to cancel, my mom said "That's it! No more January parties!". And from that point on I barely celebrated with my parents and brother, a big fat candle stuck into a Hostess cupcake. Later, we forgot about the whole thing.
Ever since I've been wary of birthdays. A couple of attempts at gatherings or trips up north were scratched in the past. About ten years ago we barely made it home from a stay in Bodega Bay when all the roads were washed out.
January can be a cruel month.
So this time we gave in, and postponed our paid-for trip to Sea Ranch until February, whenit should be Spring. That leaves me with the next two days to spend at home, having already announced vacation days at work.
Oh well. It could be worse.
Looks like Solar Cycle 24 might just have begun. We have been at the bottom of a sunspot cycle for a good number of years now, making ham radio communication very difficult (because long range propagation requires bouncing signals off the ionosphere, which needs the solar wind of ionized particles coming from sun spots to stay opaque enough to be usable in the 3-30MHz range.
If this is all true and the cycle has just begun with sunspot 10981, then in another year or so I may be able to dust off my transceiver and reconnect with my radio friends in Japan, Russia, and Europe.
These days turning on my radio brings in just noise from every direction. The occasional ham I do hear is usually somewhere in Texas running 500+ Watts. I can hear him sorta, but he'll never hear my measly 100W signal coming off my poor vertical antenna.
So I wait for the peak of Cycle 24, coming in 3 to 5 years from now, when, as they say, you can get long distance with just duct tape and bailing wire.
All it takes is patience.
So, Springtime on old Sol. A good birthday present. Things are looking up.
Read more at: http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2008/01/07/100/
For any music's future, you don't go to the devices, you don't go to the procedures, you go to the attitude. And you do not find your own attitude; that's what you inherit. I'm not my own man. I'm a compilation of all the important people in my life. I once had a seven-hour conversation with Boulez; unknown to him, at affected my life. I admire his attitude. Varese's attitude. Wolpe's attitude. Cage's attitude. I spent one afternoon with Beckett; it will be with me forever. Not his work; not his commitment; not his marvellous face, but his attitude. (August 1980 - quoted in Morton Feldman Says, edited by Chris Villars, Hyphen Press, London 2006)
The Morton Feldman Page: http://www.cnvill.net/mfhome.htmThe Speaking of Music Interview, January 1986 with Charles Amirkhanian: on RadiOM.org
People ask "Where have you been? No blog entries lately... whats up? Are you OK?"
Well, January is hibernation month around here. Besides, see below.
And I've been somewhat pre-occupied, thinking about upgrading my 3 blogs (All I Know, All I've Seen, and Music From Other Minds) to Movable Type 4.1 from version 3.32. The upgrade is pretty hairy, judging by the comments on the MT Forum, and would require changing the database technology I currently use. Obvious fears about losing it all and having to either start over or try to recover four years of blogging. Yesterday I pretty much gave up on the idea. Even tho it is a bit flaky, it is working ok. I don't like the way MT3 uses categories, and the tools for managing the blog are missing some important features (like making batch changes to all or most entries, and better support for multiple categories per entry) that are frustrating. And I don't think moving to MT4 would fix any of that.
I also looked into B2Evolution, an open source blogging platform. I even installed it on my ISP's server and tried it out. It uses MySQL, and I immediately got some obscure php errors. A search of the B2Evo forums pointed at a solution, which had me editing some php files in the distro, not something you do lightly. That fixed the immediate problems but new ones popped up, so I trashed it all and gave in to sticking with MT3.32
My photo blog has gotten pretty big with nearly 400 entries now, and many categories. I may have to transform it into something else. But just thinking about it makes me nervous. So I've been staying away from all that.
Haven't touched the camera or the slide collection. It's a quiet time, just reading. (eg Naomi Klein's SHOCK DOCTRINE, which I recommend everyone read!) And, thanks to Netflix, we've been watching a lot of movies... catching up:
We liked them all. The stars indicate how much. Over the holiday break we did a Antonioni retrospective. Very strange to see them again after so many years. And, I renewed my admiration for Monica Vitti!
They tell me Spring will be soon.
Next couple of weeks are full with many interesting events:
Sat Jan 26: 4pm Pianist Christopher Taylor at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute
Simons Auditorium, Chern Hall, 17 Gauss Way (Grizzly Peak & Centennial, Berkeley)
Christopher Taylor talks with David Benson, author of Music: A Mathematical Offering and Robert Osserman, Special Projects Director, MSRI. Go to http://www.msri.org/ for information and directions. (More information).
Sat Jan 26: 8pm Helmut Lachenmann at Mills College Lisser Hall (Oakland)
William Winant, percussion; Graeme Jennings, violin; Erik Ulman, violin; Ellen Ruth Rose, viola; Joan Jeanrenaud, cello; Matt Ingalls, clarinet; Geoffrey Gartner, cello; Christopher Jones, piano
http://music.mills.edu/events
Sun Jan 27: 3p Christopher Taylor plays Messiaen's monumental "Vingt regards sur l'enfant Jesu"
www.calperfs.berkeley.edu/presents/season/2007/20th_century_and_beyond/ct.php
Sun Jan 27: 3pm San Francisco Chamber Orchestra - Mountain is Mountain, a World Premiere of a Concertino for Flute & String Orchestra by award-winning composer Yu-Hui Chang.
First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing Way, Berkeley www.sfchamberorchestra.org
Tu Jan 29: 8pm Del Sol Quartet - Coming Together
a collaboration with clarinetist Jeff Anderle and master didjeridu player Stephen Kent, featuring the quartet and the two guest musicians assembled into duet, quintet, and sextet, performing works by Derek Bermel, Peter Sculthorpe, Osvaldo Golijov, and a work by Arturo Salinas in which the musicians experiment as percussionists. These works reflect diverse influences, including American jazz, Asian folk melodies, Klezmer music, and Mexican rhythms. Berkeley Chamber Performances, 2315 Durant Avenue, Berkeley, CA http://www.delsolquartet.com/concert.html
Sat Feb 2: 8pm Sarah Cahill performs works by Terry Riley, Stephen Blumberg, Kyle Gann, and others. The new Arts Festival location is at 2213 Shattuck Avenue in downtown Berkeley. Details at www.berkeleyartsfestival.com.
Mon Feb 4: 8pm Luciano Chessa presents Chronicle Hotel
a recital that includes the premiere of his brand-new Chronicle Hotel and other compositions of his for piano and Vietnamese dan bau, as well as piano works by Giuseppe Chiari, Theresa Wong, Ramon Sender, Gregory Moore, Sylvano Bussotti, Mark Menzies, Benjamin Piekut, and others. San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Concert Hall, 50 Oak Street, San Francisco, CA, 94102-6011 http://www.sfcm.edu/calendar/calendar.aspx?performanceID=1926
Mon Feb 4: 8pm SF Contemporary Music Players - Yerba Buena Center Forum - S.F.
Music by Steve Mackey, Morton Feldman, David Sheinfeld, Jorge Liderman http://sfcmp.org
Tues Feb 5: 8 PM Matt Davignon and Les Hutchins, Polly Moller & Co
1510 8th St Performance Space, 1510 8th Street, Oakland Map
Matt Davignon and Les Hutchins will interweave their amazing electronic sounds at 8:00 p.m., followed by Polly Moller & Co., consisting of Polly Moller (flute, bass flute, & voice), Jim Carr (bass), Amar Chaudhary (electronica), and Bill Wolter (guitar). $10.00 info: www.bayimproviser.com/venuedetail.asp?venue_id=39
Sat Feb 9: 8p: Bang on a Can / Don Byron and Iva Bittova
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco http://www.ybca.org/tickets/production.aspx?performanceNumber=3149
Tonight's concert at Mills College in Oakland featuring the music of visiting Composer-In-Residence Helmut Lachenmann was a bit of a disappointment.
Lachenmann, now 73, has been active in Europe since the 1960's, and his music appears regularly at new music festivals around the world.
What was disappointing for me tonight was not being able to hear any of his recent music. All the pieces presented were from 20 to 45 years ago (1963-1988).
Needless to say, the concert at Mills seemed exceptionally well performed. This music is really difficult to pull off. Kudos to anyone willing to attempt it.
But by now the style seems really dry and, at least to me, devoid of any real life. It was like being at a play, a very physical and emotional drama, but in a language you didn't understand at all. For awhile it sounds intriguing, and then it gets a bit tedious. The actors were great and you can tell they were really into the performance; but the meaning of the whole thing remained a mystery.
It's hard to tell from the listener's seat what compositional processes were involved. And even tho much of it sounded as if it could have been improvised, it was clearly all written out in a complex notation. But one wonders what to make of it all.
Lachenmann employs a lot of non-traditional performance techniques in his music. And in that period of the 70's and 80's it seemed that every piece of new music tried to outdo each other by exploring new ways to play traditional acoustic instruments that no one else ever thought of.
Two of the works tonight, his Gran Torso (1972) for string quartet, and Toccatina (1986) for solo violin, had significant sections that were practically inaudible (and I was in the third row). The players bowed on the wood parts of their instruments, producing whisper-like sounds while making big gestures with the bow and arm. It was as if someone suddenly turned off the sound but the players kept going. (I noticed too that they were torturing their poor bows.)
I was reminded of Nicolas Slonimsky's complaint: "The trouble with modern music is that there isn't enough of it." He was referring to those pieces of sparse pointillism and long silences that sound as if someone had taken a big eraser to the score and only left a random smattering of notes here and there. "Too few notes" Nicolas complained, "lets hear more music".
I had the same feeling tonight. In Gran Torso, the quartet rarely played a conventional note. Very ugly scraping sounds were contrasted with quiet ticking sounds made by tapping the bow handle against the strings, and glissandi effects made by running the bow up the strings (instead of across). But when this work was created, composers rushed to see how many unique and clever effects they could get out of these instruments, no matter if it made any sense to do so.
The works presented tonight made up a Grand Catalog of crazy things you can do with instruments. This gets pretty tedious quickly. I'm still left wondering what Lachenmann is composing today. (Most composers left the 80's behind them.)
Lachenmann's two piano pieces, Wiegenmusik (1963) and Ein Kinderspiel (1980) were a bit different. The first is a violent cascade of notes all over the keyboard, utilizing "after-sounds" .. those ghostlike sounds that echo in the body of the piano after the sustain pedal is released. (We heard a lot of those.) The second was much more minimal, hammering away at some of the "marginalized" piano sounds, like clusters of the highest notes that sound like metal clanking. I found these pieces much more interesting than the others. And, they were masterfully played by the composer.
The final work of the evening, Allegro Sostenuto (1988) for clarinet, piano, and cello, was difficult to like. Many of the unconventional sounds we had heard in the earlier pieces reappeared. And this one had a lot more notes, which would make Nicolas happy. Needless to say, this apparently difficult work was enthusiastically played by Matt Ingalls, no stranger to extended techniques on the clarinet, Christoper Jones, piano, and Geoffrey Gartner, whose dramatic frown throughout the piece made it seem he was having a serious punch-out with his cello.
Still, I found it really tedious, devoid of any sustaining interest beyond a few "nice sounds" here and there. There must have been some organizational thread holding it all together, but I couldn't find it.
The venue at Mills, Lisser Hall, was chosen because the wonderful Mills College Concert Hall is under reconstruction. It worked well and the place was full, mostly of young people, which is always good to see. Only problem was the smell of garlic from a nearby kitchen, and the gentle sound of rain on the roof which was most apparent during those long inaudible sections of the quartet, which mixed with growling stomachs from the audience to make a nice aural patina that added a bit of reality to the proceedings.
The audience was extremely attentive and respectful, and Lachenmann did receive a standing ovation, which surprised some of us old-timers. It does seem that the local improviser-performers hold him in high esteem. Which itself is curious because none of his music is improvised. I hope this same enthusiastic audience will show up at some of the other new music events coming up in the next couple of months. We all need audiences like this.
I was glad I went, if only to see up close someone I'd only heard about for 40 years. Unfortunately, there wasn't much there there.
Rarely one gets the opportunity to experience something truly wonderful, mesmerizing, and overwhelming in public. But that's what happened this afternoon at Hertz Hall on Berkeley campus, when Christopher Taylor performed Olivier Messiaen's Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant-Jésus .. from memory.
Now, I'm sure others have performed this seemingly impossible task, but this was a first for me. I've attended a good number of performances, and even once saw Yvonne Loriod perform it in New York City many years ago. But always with the score and the required page turner. To play it, all two hours plus, from memory still seems to me, a non-pianist, flatly impossible.
I have a copy of the score, and it's one of those objects that I deeply revere. I also have many recordings of the piece and have spent many hours following along while listening. And I am certain that there is no way a mere human could enter all that information into their brain and still be able to live. And yet, there it was. I am still in a curious state of mind, as if I had just seen someone fly, or walk on water.
Chris Taylor is an incredible pianist. That is a known fact. We saw him at Other Minds 12 in December 2006 performing with the Feinsmith Quartet, and he was back with them last October. And in November 2005 he managed another incredible performance, this time with György Ligeti's complete Piano Etudes. His performance today, which got a (well deserved) lengthy standing ovation, was truly amazing.
Yet another classical music reviewer at a Bay Area newspaper has been removed for budgetary reasons.
Sigh.
Georgia Rowe at the Contra Costa Times here.
