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The Fireman, "Watercolour Guitars"

Jonty Harrison, "Klang"

...program notes...

Colours, "Love Heals"

Kill The Bird by Not Breaking the Chain.

The origin myth of Gregorian chant is that the Holy Spirit, in the form of a dove, alighted on Gregory the Great's shoulder and dictated the entire canon of liturgical chants to him. It's a lovely story but not in any way true.

Yet, the little white bird of inspiration holds powerful sway over composers. As Dolf pointed out yesterday, one of the most helpful bits of advice we ever got from a composition professor was to "Kill the Bird". If you sit around waiting for inspiration, you're passing up the opportunity to write music.

When Shania Twain first went to Nashville, she was horrified at the professionalism of the songwriters there. They set aside specific times during the day to write, and she subscribed to the notion that songwriting was an organic act. The music comes when it comes. You can't force it.

If you're Mozart or Dylan, this can be true. Both writers spoke of their compositional process as essentially being divine dictation (as per the Gregorian legend), but most composers can count on one hand the number of times inspiration has presented them with a fully formed piece of music. Most writing is a struggle of will, and learning to write when inspiration is absent is an important skill for any composer.

One way to Kill the Bird is with a system that Jerry Seinfeld devised to help him write jokes every day, and all you need is a calendar and a magic marker.

Jerry came up with this system early in his career when he realized that to be a better comic, he needed better jokes, and the only way to get them was to write every day. To get in the habit, Jerry would prominently post one of those calendars with the entire year on one page. After each day that he wrote, he'd cross out the date on the calendar with a red magic marker. Once you get going, you start to build a chain of red X's on your wall, and at that point, the goal becomes simple: Don't Break the Chain.

Klang Rehearsals

musikFabrik will present Klang in its entirety next month. Though the cycle is composed of pieces written for every hour of the day, they don't quite lend themselves to a sequential performance marathon. For example, Natural Durations, the music for the 3rd hour of the day, lasts 120 minutes. musikFabrik's solution to this problem is to create a two-day festival of performances at multiple venues within walking distance of each other. The audience can hear the entire cycle choose-your-own-adventure-style.

The following clip is a rehearsal of Glanz, the 10th hour:

Thanks for the great work Loris!

Dr. Loris Chobanian is retiring from his Forty-Year career at Baldwin-Wallace College. Two of your favorite ANAbloggers were privileged to study composition with him, and I have been very pleased to keep in contact with him since.

Loris has been a very positive influence on my development as a
musician and composer. He was always very positive and encouraging,
yet always honest about the difficulty in becoming a professional
composer and musician. He has many stories that are great and
insightful, one of which wasn't so much a story but something that
still sticks in my ear: "When they don't let you get your foot in the
door, you go in through the window!" This attitude of not giving up,
not accepting the first denial you get, has always stuck with me.
While it instills an attitude of positivism, it also made me very
aware that the road to being a professional musician wouldn't be easy.

As a composition teacher, his style is flexible and attuned to the
needs of a curious student. Learning from him was an active process.
He listened very closely to the needs of each student and would
respond with an observation that cut to the core of what the student
needed for the next step.

He was also really good at getting students to develop a habit of
writing, of developing a working relationship with music creation.
There is a tendency for composition students to wait for inspiration,
and then once that inspiration came to the manuscript paper, not to be
able to work with it. Many beginner composition students would be
waiting for a magical bird to come and sing on their windowsill so
that they'd have a piece to play at the next symposium. "Kill the
bird!" Dr. Chobanian would say, encouraging his students to work with
their creation and allow themselves to develop.

Cam'ron, "Spend the Night"

Reality Vs. Parody

Reality's funnier every time.

Obama wants to pursue Bush's idea to use conventional warheads on ICBM's. Seems like a nice idea, right? Goes with his whole Nuke-Free vision of the future.

Problem is, when that ICBM is in flight, Russia or China could quite reasonably assume it's under nuclear attack and retaliate. Donald Rumsfeld, clear thinker that he was, tried to brush away the issue at a press conference four years ago. His reasoning is exquisite nonsense:

Now mind you, against them -- on the basis that an ICBM in flight -- some countries might not know whether it was a conventional weapon or a nuclear weapon. It seems to me that that's not a very powerful argument, because there are only a few countries that would have the ability to do anything about it, were -- regardless of which type of weapon it was. And those countries are the countries that would have the ability to know when it was launched and what the azimuth and direction of it was. And everyone in the world would know that it was conventional after it hit within 30 minutes, or 10 minutes.

That could be right out of the script for Dr. Strangelove. Who's going to wait 30 minutes after the missile hits to figure out if it's a nuke?! They're going to retaliate mid-flight. Of course, you could always do what President Merkin Muffley did and call your counterpart in Moscow to explain nicely that it's all a big misunderstanding. That oughtta fix it, right Don?

"Well let me finish, Dimitri.

Let me finish, Dimitri.

Well, listen, how do you think I feel about it? Can you imagine how I feel about it, Dimitri?

Why do you think I'm calling you? Just to say hello?

Of course I like to speak to you. Of course I like to say hello. Not now, but any time, Dimitri.

I'm just calling up to tell you something terrible has happened. It's a friendly call.

Of course it's a friendly call. Listen, if it wasn't friendly, ... you probably wouldn't have even got it."

Sade, "Bring Me Home"

from Soldier of Love

Mark Nauseef, "Ekatanta" (with Markus Stockhausen)

from No Matter

John McLaughlin and the 4th Dimension, "Discovery"

jmat4d

RIP, Guru

Terje Isungset, "Fading Sun"

ti

Rosey Grier, "It's Alright To Cry"

(photo lowdown)

McGinty & White, "I'm So Tired"

Tony Banks, "This Is Love"

tb

Jimi Hendrix, "Mr. Bad Luck"