Broadway Rhythms

A fringe benefit of having family who live in New York: one has a home base for exploring the Theater District – Disneyland for folks like me who enjoy seeing plays and musicals. And treating my brother Paul to a show is the least I can do for imposing my smelly, hairy, often grumpy self on his family (that's them in the photo: Audrey, Rebecca, Chloe, Paul).

Recently we saw Equus. You know, the one where Harry Potter (I mean, Daniel Radcliffe) gets his kit off and then blinds a bunch of horses?

(Click here to find out more about the play)

I won’t write much about this play (since it’s not a musical) except to say that it was thoroughly engaging, a bit melodramatic, wonderfully acted and staged, reductive in its portrayal of the psychiatric profession and the spiritual opportunities of “madness” – and that Daniel Radcliffe isn’t a kid anymore. He’s quite diminutive – 5’ 2’’ I’m guessing – but has great stage presence nonetheless.

Speaking of short folks… “hey Shorty!” -- that’s what a homeless guy shouted at my niece Chloe on New Year’s Eve, right before he fell onto 59th street. Ah, New York… someday I’ll have to visit again with my ten Brazilian brats. Name that reference and I’ll give you $50 for the powder room.

Anyway, Chloe is six now – and this Christmas, my present was to take her to see Stomp. (I’ve already bought her every Polly Pocket imaginable.) You may have heard about or seen Stomp – it’s all percussion, no dialogue beyond grunts and shouts, and the “instruments” are everyday objects like brooms, lighters, basketballs, tubing, sticks, newspapers. This show is extraordinarily entertaining and inspiring. Here are a couple of clips:






The performers played characters: the leader, the joker, the jester… and it had a great dramatic arc – intense and loud numbers were balanced by quieter ones, with humor thrown in. Let me put it this way: six-year-old Chloe was never bored by the hour-and-forty-five minute show (neither was Uncle David), and she laughed out loud several times. Actually, her laughter became an obbligato to the performer’s improvisations – and at one point, part of the show, when they did a John-Cage-inspired number – coming onstage, totally silent, then riffing on the audience’s coughs, laughs, and assorted shufflings.

The audience was more actively involved as well. We did call-and-response clapping, and at the end the “leader” encouraged us in this activity as he slowly exited, the message seeming to be “go feel the rhythm and music of everyday life yourself.”

Unfortunately the only rhythm I could feel upon leaving the theater was the chattering of my own teeth (December in New York…). However, at the Virgin Megastore on 14th Street over hot chocolate and Doritos (don’t ask), Chloe let me know that the Stomp outing had been a success: “they were really good! I want to do that!” She also kept saying “I want to be her!” in reference to one of the performers: a tall, muscular African-American woman with dreadlocks.

Just as an aside -- not to get political, but I’m writing this on the eve of the historic inauguration. I’m old enough to remember a time when, and from a part of the country where, for a 6-year-old white girl to say that she wanted to “be” a black woman would have been almost unthinkable. So I think it’s pretty cool that Barack Obama is the first president that Chloe and my other nieces, Ande and Audrey, will remember. Ande (who’ s Chinese, BTW) was recently given a choice of 2009 wall calendars for her room: Disney Princesses or Barack Obama. She was adamant: “I want Rock-a-Bom-Bom!” Audrey is only 13 months old and as yet apolitical. The change she seeks almost always involves a diaper.

Back to the theater -- I was less satisfied by the other show I saw in New York: Spring Awakening. It’s a rock musical in the tradition of Hair and Rent, with music by indie-pop star Duncan Sheik, set in 1890s Germany, dealing with various teenage challenges: oppressive teachers, clueless parents, raging libidos, depression, suicide, abortion… all set to rock music. I’d been warned away, but when the show won a bunch of Tony’s (including Best New Musical) I thought I’d check out this phenomenon for myself. So I did with my dear friend Heidi, who bussed up from New Jersey.

I could wish that instead of seeing this show, Heidi and I had continued our pre-show activities: eating pub food, drinking Guinness, browsing music stores, and talking about Emily Dickinson. English Teachers Gone Wild!

Spring Awakening is basically Rent meets High School Musical minus brain cells. It’s Rent-like in its high tragedy (people dying for no good reason, others carrying on despite their pain). It’s like HSM in that it features almost completely clueless kids confronting tough ethical dilemmas for the first time. It’s Rent for those who’ve never had to pay rent.

Even though its characters were dealing with heavy stuff, Spring Awakening didn’t make much impression on me because I found it almost impossible to care about what I was watching. I began to wonder why, and thought about it. Heidi and I talked about it (English Teachers Gone Wild! Deluxe Edition: The Critical Review). I realized that I had a hard time engaging with Spring Awakening because its characters were presented in no recognizable historical or social context. They could have been anywhere, so they were nowhere. It was a musical starring teenaged Platonic forms: here’s Libido, here’s Misunderstood, there’s Naïve and her friend Sexual Abuse Survivor, Oppressed will now sing a ballad…

I could care about the characters in Rent, by contrast, because that show is forcefully located in Reagan-era Alphabet City, when AIDS and gentrification were systematically destroying the bohemian culture of the East Village. Even to High School Musical I could relate – I know what it’s like when you have to choose between high school friends who don’t get along. Another example: West Side Story… I’m not a Shark or a Jet, or even a Maria (except for that one Halloween…) but their particular environment is presented so convincingly that it becomes universal. Other examples: The Breakfast Club – a more “80s movie” can’t be named, but it’s timeless in its portrayal of in groups and out groups. The Graduate, Hair, Harold and Maude: quintessentially 60s/early 70s, but universal in their themes of angst, desire, and hope for the future.

With Spring Awakening… eh. It didn’t flesh out its 1890s German context at all, aside from telling us in the program that the show is “set in 1890s Germany,” giving characters names like “Wendla” and “Melchior,” and dressing the cast in old-timey costumes. The characters were located in a Never-Neverland of teenage angst.

I suppose that’s where teen angst lives – a timeless world of self-doubt and self-discovery – but to get adults to care about that, a few details would be helpful. Perhaps the point of this vagueness was to bridge past and present: “hey look! What was going on then is still going on today!” Hopefully this awareness would be of some comfort to younger audience members.

And it seemed to be, judging by the head-banging of the emo-teens seated in front of Heidi and me. Still. I can’t help but think that substandard art like this dumbs down the experience of adolescence, and does a disservice to kids trying to figure out who they are through the representations our culture gives them.

Consider the contrast in the poetry: lyrics from “Somewhere” (West Side Story):

There's a place for us,
Somewhere a place for us.
Peace and quiet and open air
Wait for us
Somewhere.
There's a time for us,
Some day a time for us, 

Time together with time to spare, 

Time to look, time to care, 

Someday! 
Somewhere. 

We'll find a new way of living, 

We'll find a way of forgiving 

Somewhere.

Or High School Musical (admittedly, lesser poetry, this is Disney-fied adolescence, after all):

Now I know you’re not a fairytale
And dreams were meant for sleeping
And wishes on a star
Just don't come true
Because now even I can tell
That I confused my feelings with the truth
Because I liked the view
When there was me and you.

Here are the lyrics I remember from Spring Awakening:

“We’ve all l got our junk and my junk is you.”
“Blah! Blah! Blah! Blah! Blah! Blah! Blah! Blah!”

Don’t kids today deserve more than “junk” and “Blah”?

Well, at least no one blinded any horses. The actors did get partially nude, though, and have simulated sex onstage, which had all the appeal of an Ann Coulter interview. 

Sometimes good music can make up for a weak book (hello, Funny Face). I didn’t find this to be case with Spring Awakening. The songs alternated between forgettable plaintive ballads, more forgettable heavy, angry rock, with a few gems scattered throughout that I would have loved to hear songwriter Duncan Sheik sing himself.

Now, I’ve been a fan of Duncan Sheik for quite a while. He writes tender, intelligent chamber pop; his voice and delivery are heartbroken and vulnerable. He’s capable of some beautiful work.

Check this out if you’re interested:



Sheik has said that he’d like to write for Broadway again, and I hope he does, and if so, perhaps he’ll find better source material. His talent requires it.

I’ve gone on longer than I intended. Substandard art just really disturbs me. It’s a wonder that I can stand to hear myself play the viola. But then, I keep practicing. It’s the activity that matters. As John Updike said: "Creativity is merely a plus name for regular activity...any activity becomes creative when the doer cares about doing it right, or better."

DH

PS. Viola joke: In addition to shouting “fire!” in a crowded theater, what else can land you in jail?

Shouting “viola solo!” in a crowded concert hall.

"C" is for Conductors...

Living as we are in the age of Obama, I’m going to step away from my Bush-era role as “decider” of this blog’s content, and instead let a “team of rivals” do my work for me. As in, incorporate some other perspectives.

We all know the conductor is the only guy (or increasingly, gal) onstage who’s not playing an instrument. Well, they actually are playing an instrument: the whole orchestra.

With 70+ musicians in an orchestra, we need someone to keep us together. Musicians learned as much hundreds of years ago. As choirs grew in size during the Middle Ages, it became apparent that someone needed to keep the beat with a large staff. This led to tragic results in one case:

“The large staff was responsible for the death of Jean-Baptiste Lully, who stabbed his foot with one while conducting a Te Deum for the king's recovery from illness. The wound became gangrenous, and despite the efforts of doctors the gangrene spread to his leg and he died two months later.” (from Wikipedia, “Conductors”)

Some things never change. Oboist Dawna Davies recalls:

“repeated experiences of having the baton slipping out of the fingers of various enthusiastic band conductors and flung at me, thankfully not as a weapon.”

(Those of us in the SLO Symphony who sit near the podium experience the runaway baton with some regularity, though it’s more like baton-pong than anything dangerous.)

As orchestras grew, the concertmaster or harpsichordist would sometimes function as conductor. By the 19th century, orchestral music was getting more complex; the orchestra was expanding, and so it became necessary to have a separate conductor. There are several things a conductor has to do:

Tempo
Conductors make patterns -- “beat patterns” -- with their hands/arms/batons to indicate the tempo of the music. The tricky thing is the “ictus” – that’s the exact moment in the gesture when they expect the beat to occur. This can vary from conductor to conductor. Tempos vary from group to group – some play “on the beat” – right with the conductor – but some play “behind the beat.” And some do both at the same time, which is always interesting.

Dynamics
How loud or soft to play. Some conductors will keep time with one hand, and use the other to indicate dynamics. Raising the hand up usually means louder, putting it palm down (as in “shush”) means quieter. Or they can just shout “Too much viola! There’s way too much viola!” (Stop smiling, Tanya). The scope of the conductor’s gestures also indicates dynamics: big gestures mean loud; tiny beat patterns mean soft.

Cues
Telling us to wake up and play, when we’ve zoned out, worst-case scenario. Best-case: gesturing in a way that indicates our part is important and needs to be heard. Cues can be really important for brass, winds, and percussion in some repertoire: for example, Mozart, Haydn, and many operas. I’m not sure I could count 200 or more bars of rest, like they have to do, without actually going to sleep. The viola part can be soporific enough.

Musicality/Expression/Articulation
There’s a lot variance here among conductors and musicians’ preferences. Some like conductors to keep the beat, be clear on cues, and to be very precise about expectations. Others prefer more dramatic, Romantic, expressive conducting.

Conducting isn’t all about technique. The conductor is like the coach or spiritual leader of the orchestra. They’re the one who convinces us to drink the Kool-Aid. Conductors do so by different means. Some are nice and encouraging; others are demanding, and some can be intimidating. Each approach has it benefits and drawbacks.

My teacher, Wayne Crouse, told a story about Sir John Barbirolli that shows the maestro to have been encouraging, but still demanding. The Houston Symphony was playing Elgar’s Enigma Variations, one movement of which ends with a delicate viola solo (red flag!) – buh-buh-buuuuum. Mr. Crouse was nervous, and at the Friday concert, the solo came out – buh-buh-scratch-buuuuum. Sir John spoke to him before the Saturday show (I’m paraphrasing, of course):

“My dear Wayne, what I love about your playing is its human quality. You don’t play like a machine. So mistakes will be made from time to time.” (Dramatic pause.) “Just don’t make that mistake again tonight.” (And he didn’t.)

On the other end of the spectrum, some conductors can be mean bastards. Some can be insulting, inadvertently or deliberately. Oboist Linda Ashworth recalls a performance of Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto #1 (which has a 3-oboe soli section) with another orchestra. Afterwards, the conductor said to her and the other two oboists:

"Well, three oboes in unison is better than two oboes in unison."

Linda was a recent convert to the oboe (from clarinet) at the time, so you can imagine these weren’t the most encouraging words to hear.

Sometimes conductors can be intimidating. Here’s another story from Dawna Davies:

“So I was a teenager, playing 2nd oboe in California All-State band, and had the honor of turning pages for the 1st chair oboist. I inadvertently turned 2 pages simultaneously, instead of one. The 1st chair messed up the solo, and points vindictively at me. When I apologized and tried to explain, the conductor raged at me, ‘What are you going to do? Stand up and tell that to the audience?’ I shrunk, and still recall the shame pounding in my ears and the audible gasp from the woodwind players around me.”

Cellist Tracy Sparks tells a great story that illustrates the differences between inspiring and intimidating conductors:

“I think the greatest assets a conductor can have are respect and a sense of humor. I have been to and played at concerts where the orchestra members are so stressed out about making a "mistake" that the pieces sound as tense as the musicians looked. I respect a conductor wanting to bring the best out of a group and musicians need to stay focused, but degrading, humiliating and tearing apart a musician is not the way to get it. Sometimes allowing the musicians a few brain-burp moments can have great rewards.

For instance, I played in an orchestra where there were ten cellists. It felt good to play in this section, because you felt like someone was always covering your back if you were having an off day. Well, during one dress rehearsal we were playing a piece where the cellos had a soli that built up to a glorious climax on a note that was two-thirds of the way down the fingerboard. A risky jump, but we had been making it, albeit tentatively, at every rehearsal. The moment comes and we built up to -- nothing! We all missed it -- we didn't hit the wrong note, we just didn't play it! We were all so uncertain that we thought we'd let the "other guy" get it.

Our conductor kept going, not missing a beat, finished the movement, stopped to talk over a few things with the other members of the orchestra and nonchalantly said, "and cellos, you may want to play that "F#" a little louder next time, it seemed a little, (dramatic pause), weak" (he did have a twinkle in his eyes when he said it -- or were those tears?). We went home and practiced it for hours and when the time came for our big "moment" during the concert, we nailed it -- every single one of us! We laughed about it for years and vowed to NEVER let that happen again!

Of course it could have been a nightmare, but because our conductor had a sense of humor, a lot of patience and an understanding that "poop" happens, we went home to practice the piece, not out of fear, but out of respect for him. He trusted us to bring our best game to that performance, just as we trusted him to consistently guide us through the piece. It was a win-win situation, the biggest winner being of course, the audience. Because of course, that's really why we are there!”

Tracy’s thoughts about trust and communication between conductor and orchestra remind me of this interesting fact Randy Garacci shared:

“Years ago there was an article in Psychology Today comparing orchestra conductors and animal trainers. After observing both, the author concluded that conductors and animal trainers both communicate using gestures. As training progressed, the gestures became increasingly subtle so as to be barely noticeable except by the “trainee.” I think the best conductors I have worked with talked less and expressed more through gesture.”

Here’s an image to keep in mind the next time you attend a concert:
The Conductor as the Dog Whisperer. http://www.cesarmillaninc.com/dogwhisperer/

BTW, if you’d like to read about Mike Nowak’s thoughts on being a conductor, check out this interview: http://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/moebius/vol6/iss1/11/

He speaks about several topics I didn’t have room to cover here: programming, working with soloists, music education, conducting professional vs. community orchestras, etc. Here’s a sample:

“At the free dress rehearsals I’ll look out at the auditorium and think ‘there are 1100 people here who want to hear us. There’s a real desire for what we do. And it’s just a rehearsal.’ I’ve been here 24 years, and my goal is to stay here long enough that the next conductor, to beat my record, will have to live to be over one hundred years old!”

How’s that for encouraging?

Best, DH

PS...
A conductor and a violist are standing in the middle of the road. Which one do you run over first, and why?

The conductor. Business before pleasure.

Alternate version:

A conductor and a violist are standing in the middle of the road. Which one do you run over first, and why?

Neither. Take evasive action, and look for a music critic standing in the middle of the road. ;)

Tchaikovsky and the Holidays

I’m back from my holiday sojourns to Texas and New York, and notwithstanding travel delays and bad weather (including turbulence on the runway in Dallas), I had a great time. I wish I had a video of my one-year-old niece Audrey saying “Baaa?” (that’s “bottle” in baby-talk) then grabbing an empty beer bottle and putting it in her mouth.

Since I really have no idea what I’m doing with this blogging thing, for Christmas I asked for “The Huffington Post’s Complete Guide to Blogging.” And I got it, from my computer-savvy brother-in-law. I also got some really great Steve Madden shoes. Mmm… shoes.

In keeping with La Ariana’s sage advice on blogging, here’s a short post, not-very-well-written-or-edited, that incorporates visuals.

In Fort Worth, my sister, 5-year-old niece, and I attended a performance of The Nutcracker, along with another 5-year-old and her mother. I hadn’t seen the ballet since I was a child, and I’ve never played it (just the orchestral suite), so I was really jazzed. They used recorded music, which was disappointing, but I got used to the tinny sound after a while.

Maybe it was being surrounded by children, but the performance really took me back to my childhood love of Tchaikovsky. When I was a boy, I would listen to The Nutcracker for hours, lying on my bed, letting my mind fill with the images conjured by the music. Later, I got into the 1812 Overture and Marche Slave, and eventually the symphonies.

At some point, though, I began to turn off Tchaikovsky. I still enjoyed playing his music (the viola parts are very satisfying, and challenging) but I didn’t really enjoy listening to his work, live or recorded. Shortly after joining the SLO Symphony, I had a conversation with Mike Nowak about Tchaikovsky. He’s not a huge fan either – doesn’t program the symphonies – even though Tchaikovsky is a crowd-pleaser. That made me feel a little better.

Now, when I decided to do this blog, I knew I wouldn’t pretend to be a musicologist, but I’ve been reflecting on Tchaikovsky lately and thought I’d share some of these thoughts.

What’s the appeal of Tchaikovsky? The melodies, first of all, are immediately attractive. They’re memorable, too, because they are based on scales and arpeggios, and they get repeated a lot. His work is not cerebral or abstract – it appeals first to the emotions, which, I daresay, is how most people experience music. The emotions evoked are fairly straightforward:

Heroism (1812 Overture)
Heartbreak (4^th movement of Symphony #6)
Joyful exuberance (last movement of the Serenade for Strings)

I think Tchaikovsky would have made a terrific film composer. To this day, as when I was a little boy, his work conjures mental images. Perhaps this is why (in my view) his most successful works are the ballets – his talent found fullest expression when he was composing music with images in mind.

I feel the symphonies and his other “absolute” music suffers in comparison with his ballets, and when compared with other masters of absolute music, like Bach, Beethoven, or Brahms. But maybe this is an apples and oranges issue.

Here’s a little bit of Nutcracker:

I guess for me, Tchaikovsky was a sort of “starter” composer. He paved the way for my later appreciation of guys like Brahms, Mahler, and Shostakovich.

I guess it’s normal to grow in and out of music. After all, in junior high, this was my favorite song:

Best,

DH

P.S. Stay tuned for reviews of Stomp and Spring Awakening, and “C is for Conductors.”

P.S. Why was the violist not allowed to carry his viola on the airplane?

No hazardous materials allowed on board.

Holiday Fun

Hi everyone!

Thanks so much for your great stories and thoughts about conductors – keep them coming – I could use a few more! This blog on conductors will be fun to write.

With grading final exams and preparing for the holidays, I don’t have time to do a “real” (as in “never-ending”) blog entry this month, but here are a few videos I’ve found on YouTube recently that may be of interest.

This one of our next guest artist, Lynn Harrell, is absolutely wonderful. (That's him on the right. The concert is on
Saturday, February 7th at the Cohan Center) This is his "e-greeting" to his teacher, Orlando Cole, for Cole's 100th birthday.

Here’s a very young Julie Andrews as Cinderella, from the 1950s television broadcast.

Fast forward to 2008, and here is the most musically talented Hennessee – my brother Paul – playing one of his compositions on a fundraising video for his school in New York City. (You’ll have to click through on the link below.) BTW – don’t give money – I’m sure the Spence School has plenty of donors!

http://www.spenceschool.org/holidaycard/index.aspx?bid=70&user=16021&forward=yes

Here’s a video set to Michael Buble’s version of “My Grown-Up Christmas List.”

And finally, here’s the late, great Odetta, movin’ it on.

Happy Holidays,

DH

PS. Since it’s the Holidays, here are several viola jokes:

How many positions does a violist use? Three: 1st, 3rd, and oh *@#%!

What’s the difference between a viola and a lawn mower? You can tune a lawn mower.

What's another difference between a viola and a lawn mower? The lawn mower vibrates.

What’s yet another difference between a viola and a lawn mower? Nobody 

minds if you borrow their viola.

Why are viola jokes so short? So violinists can remember them.

See you next year!

"C" is for Critics

For the promised entry on conductors, I’d like to gather anecdotes from the rest of the orchestra. I’m sure we all have lots of stories– inspirational, humorous, or horror – about conductors. So “C is for Conductors” is forthcoming.

But first, here’s something to brighten your day.
C is for Clark, Petula:

Now on to more serious matters...

Anyone working in the arts has encountered...

"The Dreaded Critic."

Criticism can make or break, or it can be dead wrong. Capote’s In Cold Blood became a cultural phenomenon largely because of universal praise in the media. Keats’ early poems were panned; he was crushed, and then he died, yet his stature has grown ever since. All those critics who ran screaming from the first performance of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring couldn’t know that his music would one day accompany animated images of dinosaurs in Fantasia.

Musicians are no strangers to criticism. It starts from day one: no, hold the bow like this… position your arm like that… breathe here, not there… play louder… softer… faster… slower… it’s a treadmill of criticism.

I got on this treadmill early, like a lot of us. Beginning at age 11, I started going to solo and ensemble competitions. I’d play my piece for a judge, then they’d give a rating and a written evaluation of the performance. Over the years I got lots of helpful criticism: “work on speeding up your vibrato,” “your bow technique is weaker than your left hand,” “practice scales and arpeggios,” and “give the piece room to breathe” (at 14, I had no idea what that meant. I’m still not sure I do. But 20-something years later, I still work on vibrato, bow technique, scales and arpeggios). 

As a young violist, I didn’t know that I’d grow up to be a teacher/critic myself (at 14, I wanted to be the next William F. Buckley, Jr. -- this was during my Reagan phase). Teaching in any field involves criticism. It’s your job to praise students when they do something well, but also point out what could be improved. “Constructive criticism” is the goal. Destructive criticism comes more naturally. It’s like the dark side of the Force… easier, instant, more seductive. How many times am I tempted to write on a student essay “Your ideas are simplistic and superficial” but check that impulse and write “this is a good start. Think about how you can complicate the analysis by considering…” When criticizing, I always ask myself, “what would Yoda do?”

Harsh criticism sometimes works, though. A teacher once said to me: “You’re a viola-playing machine.” Ouch. He meant that I was all technique. I took it personally, but afterwards I did work on musicality. On the other hand, it’s frustrating when a teacher never criticizes. A high school teacher peppered my essays with comments like, “wonderful!” and “wish I’d written it myself!” Where do you go with feedback like that? The David-Hennessee-Is-Perfect Ride at Disneyland?

I think a lot about criticism because, technically, I’m a critic myself: a literary critic. My job involves writing hardly-ever-read analyses of hardly-ever-read literary texts. Come to think of it, grading student essays (which I should be doing right now) is a form of criticism. Hmm. What does it mean to be a critic, anyway?

And what is criticism for? Would my students write good papers if they knew they would all get A's? Would I work so hard at teaching if I knew that student evaluations would all be marked “excellent”? Would Britney Spears ever wear underwear if she weren’t constantly stalked by paparazzi? If a tree falls in the woods and no one hears it, can I still save 30% on auto insurance by switching to Geico?

So what exactly is criticism? According to Dictionary.com...

crit⋅i⋅cism /ˈkrɪtəˌsɪzəm/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [krit-uh-siz-uhm] –noun

1.	the act of passing judgment as to the merits of anything.

2.	the act of passing severe judgment; censure; faultfinding.

3.	the act or art of analyzing and evaluating or judging the quality of a literary or artistic work, musical performance, art exhibit, dramatic production, etc.

4.	a critical comment, article, or essay; critique.

5.	any of various methods of studying texts or documents for the purpose of dating or reconstructing them, evaluating their authenticity, analyzing their content or style, etc.: historical criticism; literary criticism.

6.	investigation of the text, origin, etc., of literary documents, esp. Biblical ones: textual criticism.

So criticism can involve description, analysis, or judgment. Academic criticism is mostly descriptive/analytical. For example, when writing an article on Dickens’ Great Expectations, I spent not one moment considering how well the book is written. Instead, I analyzed how Pip’s coming-of-age represented and commented on mid-Victorian British debates about the nature of gentlemanliness. If you have a couple of free hours, I’d be happy to hold forth on this topic. Just give me some advance warning -- I’ll need to get my Pip and Estella sock puppets out of storage and make sure my Miss Havisham dress still fits.

The kind of criticism we encounter in the arts involves analyzing and evaluating quality, but it also includes description and context. I love reading theater reviews in The New Yorker. It’s almost as good as going to the play itself. There’s information on the playwright, some background on the play’s performance history, a plot summary, and then the red meat: evaluation of the sets, costumes, and acting. Carnivores, vegetarians, vegans – it doesn’t matter – this is the protein we need. Should we spend our hard-earned money on this thing? Or will we want those three hours of our lives back? Should I switch to Geico and save 30% on auto insurance so I can I afford to take my niece Chloe to see The Little Mermaid on Broadway this Christmas?

A critical article on a classical music concert is different. It’s basically an autopsy: retrospective, not prospective. It’s not done primarily for the purpose of encouraging or warning off potential patrons. What’s it for, then? Raising the profile of the group? Recreating the event for those who weren’t there? Helping concert attendees relive the experience? Giving them another point of view to put next to theirs? Encouraging musicians always to play their best, knowing their performance will be evaluated? Aspiring to be itself a work of artistic merit (as Oscar Wilde suggests in “The Critic as Artist”), before it ends up catching parakeet droppings or disappearing into the internet ether?

I got some early experience confronting these questions. When I was 16, playing in my hometown’s orchestra, the local paper got a new music critic. She was a good writer, but highly critical of our playing, and not used to the politics of a small town. People in the orchestra – and the community – got quite upset with her critical reviews. After all, we were lucky to have a symphony orchestra in an Oklahoma town of 80,000, and no one came to our shows expecting to hear perfection. So she toned the reviews down. By contrast, a few years later, the critic for the newly formed Oklahoma City Philharmonic didn’t pull any punches. His candor, many of us felt, was appropriate, as the orchestra strove to raise performance standards.

"Criticism isn’t criticism without some element of judgment and evaluation, even if that’s negative. That’s what separates it from advertising."

An issue that recurs with criticism: who are you to judge me? One hears this question all the time on American Idol (I have a lot of ideas on American Idol – be warned, and be afraid... very afraid). In post-audition interviews, rejected contestants who sing like cats with amoebic dysentery always say things like, “what do the judges know? I’d like to see Simon get up there and sing. @###%$!  %%$$##@, ^&%%*!” This is fallacious reasoning (I once knew a drag queen named Fallacious Reasoning... OK, not really). One’s inability to do something doesn’t mean that one can’t judge others doing it. I can’t write or direct films, but I can perceive that Woody Allen is a superior filmmaker to, say, Judd Apatow. Annie Hall vs. The 40-Old-Virgin? Come on.

Recently I came across this article in the Tribune. (click the link below) The orchestra critic for the Cleveland Orchestra lost his job because he was too consistently critical of the Music Director.

"Critics bellow over orchestra reviewer losing beat"

As a writer and writing teacher, I pay a lot of attention to the conventions of various genres. I've noticed that reviews of classical music concerts include description and evaluation of the performance, some context on the composer and their times, a few words on the audience’s response, and perhaps some discussion of past or future concerts.

The SLO Tribune’s classical music critic, Jim Cushing, incorporates these elements in his reviews. He also discusses the visuals (like what the soloist wears) that make a live concert such a radically different experience from listening to a CD on one’s stereo at home. What I particularly appreciate about Jim’s reviews is that he draws on his knowledge of Western history and culture to locate our concerts within ongoing conversations about human nature and artistic expression. To me, these ruminations are more worth reading than blow-by-blow accounts of what was technically right or wrong about our performance. But that’s just my perspective. There are no doubt others. 

A problem with criticism can creep in when one is asked to criticize someone or something in which one has some degree of personal and emotional investment. Some folks favor absolute honesty, a “cruel-to-be-kind,” “tough love” approach. I’m more of a utilitarian, and most people I know are. To us, one has to weigh the pros and cons of absolute candor. Will any purpose be served? Will anyone be made happier? Will future problems be avoided? Will I save 30% or more on my auto insurance by… AHH! Get thee behind me, gecko!

I’m reminded of a situation with a good friend years ago. He had just gotten a great new apartment. He invited us over to see the place, which he’d spent a fortune decorating. It was like Ikea had thrown up. A soulless, pre-fab nightmare. Two days there and I would have been reaching for a shotgun – not for me – for the furniture. Did he need to know all that? No. So I said, “the furniture is perfectly arranged to manage traffic flow.”

Though not entirely up front, I would call such criticism a deliberate act of kindness. Love, even?

DH
P.S. almost forgot the viola joke:

What is the main requirement at the "International Viola Competition?"
Hold the viola from memory.

Fun with YouTube: Cass Elliot, John Denver, and Maya Angelou

Hi everyone, here’s a blog where I’ll shut up for a change.

This old Cass Elliot song "New World Coming" has been on a loop in my internal soundtrack for the last several days. I can’t think why. Must be because we’re playing Dvorak’s New World Symphony this Saturday. I just can’t think of any other explanation. It's Been A-wRACKing the Ole BrAin of Mine A lot. 

Here’s Mama Cass herself singing one of her post-Mamas and Papas hits about music and individualism. Love the dress!

Here she is with John Denver singing an American standard and expressing some timely sentiments about the importance of voting:

And here she is as Witch Hazel in the classic children’s show H.R. Puf’N’Stuf:

Here’s an except from John Ashbery’s poem, “Episode,” that appeared recently in the New York Review of Books:

Yet I will be articulate

again and articulate what we knew anyway

of what the lurching moon had taught us,

seeking music where there's something dumb

being said

And here’s Maya Angelou back in 1993, speaking of the United States of America, of reality, and of hope.

DH

"B" is for Bowings

I’ve been thinking that these blog entries could be more concise. In MS Word, they’re Bruce Banner; online, they’re the Incredible Hulk. As we know, online attention spans are shorter than those for print media. I can read a ten-page New Yorker article in one sitting, but online, anything beyond one screen seems like too much. So I’m determined to tighten up this blog. The other day, talking with friend and colleague Jim Cushing, I expressed confidence that this entry would be short, maybe even too short: “I just can’t think of what to say about bowings.” After some hysterical laughter, Jim replied, “Dear David, you have too much to say about bowings.”

He was right. Strap in, kids. This will be a long ride.

Bowings.
Have you ever wondered how string players know to move their bows in the same direction? Read on to find the answer to this and other burning questions about bowings. (String players may want to scroll down, as what follows might be like detailed instructions on how to tie your shoes.)

In this clip of the Berlin Philharmonic playing the last movement of Dvorak’s New World Symphony (on the program for the November 8 Classics in the Cohan concert) notice how they don’t just move their bows in the same direction; they also play in the same part of the bow, with the same bow stoke, the same bow speed – it’s as if they were part of the Borg Bowing Collective.



Here’s a breakdown of how this uniformity is achieved. There are (thankfully) only two ways to move the bow, down or up.

Downbow: You pull the bow down toward your lap.

Upbow: The upbow goes up toward the ceiling.

String players mark these “bowings” in their music: a downbow is indicated with a mark like an upside-down U, an upbow with a V. Simple. There’s a little more to it. Generally, pickup notes and upbeats are played upbow. There’s more anticipatory energy with an upbow. Loud chords (like at the very end of a piece) are downbow. The bottom part of the bow (the frog) is heavier than the top part (the tip), so playing at the frog gets a louder sound. You also have to decide how many notes to play in one bow, what part of the bow to play in, what kind of bow stroke to use, and above all else, bowings have to feel natural and achieve specific musical effects. All these bowings have to be decided, marked in the parts, and practiced so that at the concert we’re all bowing together.

This is getting too technical already. Let’s back up further. There are two ways to make a sound on a string instrument – plucking the strings, or using the bow. Beginners start with plucking until they can read music and make a few notes with the left hand. Only then is the bow introduced. Each instrument has its way of holding the bow. For the violin and viola, the hand is perched on the bow; for the cello, it’s more draped; there are two kinds of bass bows; one kind is held overhand, the other underhand.

The bow hair is actually that – horsehair – and the little barbs in the hair catch the strings and pull out sound. We have to get our bows “rehaired” (isn’t that a great word?) -- because those barbs wear off with use. When your bow needs rehairing (did I just make up a word?) it slides around and won’t pull out a good sound. You can compensate by applying more rosin (a hardened sap-like substance that helps the bow grip the string) but that’s not a real solution. Here in SLO County, worn-out bow hair means a trip for you and your bow to Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, or San Francisco (or you can live dangerously and send your bow UPS) because there are no locals who rehair bows.

Learning to use the bow is vital because that’s how you get sound out of the instrument. You can have the best left hand technique in the world, but without good bow technique, the sound won’t be good. There are lots of different ways to bow, and each requires years to master. Legato, Detache, Martele, Marcato, Jete, Sautille, Spicatto… and others whose names I don’t recall. I was never good at memorizing musical terms. In music history, I failed the test on the Requiem Mass. I still can’t keep the movements of the Requiem straight. Pie Jesu Domine Sanctus Lux Aeterna Salon…umm… Agnus Moorhead Doris Dei Sic Transit Gloria I think they got your number, I think they got the alias that you been living under… in Excelsis Deo? (I know, I’m going to hell.)

Click below to learn more about bow techniques.

http://www.siegelproductions.ca/calvinsieb/bow.htm

I learned a new bow technique when I joined the SLO Symphony – “brushy.” “Brushy” is hard to explain, but it makes sense when Michael Nowak or Kathleen Lenski demonstrate it. We’re very lucky in the SLO Symphony to have a conductor who knows bowings. Conductors always have ideas about how they want the music to sound, but if they don’t understand the technical issues of the instruments, those ideas can get lost in translation. This is especially true for the string section, the heart of the orchestra. In the past, I’ve played under conductors who might say, “this needs to sound like a foggy, gloomy sunrise after a long night of storms, leaving everyone in the sleepy hamlet uncertain about the new day.” OK. Poetic descriptions can be helpful, but it’s even more helpful when a conductor like Michael can tell us -- and show us -- how to make that sound happen: “play at the tip of the bow, over the fingerboard, with two bow hairs, and no vibrato.”

Like John McCain and Sarah Palin on energy independence, I’ve observed that Mike has an “all-of-the above” approach to bowings. The first time I played for him I murdered a Bach minuet, but he gave me a second chance, and I played some of the Handel Concerto with a “grande detache” bow stroke. He asked me to play it again with the “brushy” stroke and demonstrated it. I mimicked him, and that’s how I got in the SLO Symphony. Blame it on “brushy.”

A few years later, when I was “guest principal” and playing Hindemith’s “The Four Temperaments,” Mike had very specific suggestions about bowings for my solos. But what really made the style of the piece click-in for me was when rehearsing the solo movement – reminiscent of bohemian café culture – he mimed having a drink and a smoke in a café (I spent most of my 20s drinking and smoking in cafes – or Seattle beer bars, rather). After that demonstration, I knew exactly how to play. There’s technique and there’s poetry, and I guess the challenge is to figure out how to marry the two.

Conductors who don’t know string technique can be either frustrated or amused by bowings. A few years ago during a recording session for PCPA, violinists Carol Kersten, Tanya Streder and I would sometimes need to have little “bowing summits” before the session could continue. The conductor took it in stride, saying he was always amused when “strings players go into their own little world” – bowing world.

On the other hand, some conductors are sticklers about bowings. Our conductor at the University of Oklahoma, a fine violinist and Diet-Coke fueled dynamo named Akira Endo, would bow every part himself. In rehearsals, he’d tell us exactly how to play his bowings. I remember his yelling at me during one rehearsal, “David, get to the frog! You’re the only one not at the frog!”

My teacher, Wayne Crouse, had great respect for Maestro Endo because Mr. Crouse had played for years under another string-player-turned conductor: Sir John Barbirolli. Sir John was a cellist, and obsessively detail-oriented about bowings. He imported the carefully marked parts from his Halle Orchestra (of Manchester, England) to the Houston Symphony. When a bowing change was made, it was a moment of high seriousness. There was a meeting of all the principal players. Prayers were said, incense burned, animals sacrificed, and then the Maestro insisted that the change be marked in every single part. From Sir John, Mr. Crouse also learned the importance of playing pianissimo passages at the tip – the very tip – of the bow. Sir John said, “only those with advanced cases of arthritis will be excused from this practice.”

Mr. Crouse had had a quite different experience earlier in his career, performing under Leopold Stokowski. After WWII, flush with oil money and hope, the Houston Symphony wanted to raise its profile, so they hired a slew of East-coast-conservatory-trained musicians, but still needed a big name to draw crowds. Who better than Mickey Mouse’s costar in Fantasia: Stokie, as they came to call him. He ruled the orchestra with an iron fist, and he insisted that they adopt “free bowing” -- he didn’t want the strings to bow together. He thought “free bowing” produced a sound that was more open, unstructured -- “free,” I guess. This technique posed a problem for the Houston Symphony strings, who’d been trained, as everyone is, to bow together. Stokowski would lose patience and cry out at rehearsals, “don’t bow together! You Americans, with your canned soup and your Social Security!” (These stories come from personal communication and from an article Wayne Crouse wrote called “When the Maestros Came to Houston.”)

The SLO Symphony is a bit more relaxed about bowings. We don’t have anyone to copy in bowings beforehand, so we get them at rehearsals. I put in bowings before first rehearsals, but often one has to wait to see what other sections will do, or what Michael might have in mind. He can be as detail-oriented as anyone. Before the opening concert last season, he called me up at home.

Mike: “Oh hey, Dave, it’s Mike Nowak.”
(Me: “Crap, what have I done now?”)
Mike: “I’ve been thinking a lot about it, and trying it out, and you guys' opening line in the Brahms – (singing) duh-duh-duh-duh-duh – I think it’s better down/up than up/down.”

Whew! Then we talked about other viola issues on the concert. It’s so great to play under another violist who can talk in detail about the viola part. Somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something good.

I told Ina Davenport (a pianist friend of mine and Mike’s) about this down/up, up/down conversation, and she replied with her trademark wry humor: “Oh well, I hope poor Mikey didn’t lose too much sleep over that.” As the pianist in our group, the Lumiere Quartet, Ina’s left out of “bowing summits,” and I think she gets bored. She’s figured out, though, that when we go into bowing world, that’s a good time to stretch her legs, use the restroom, hop down to the Inn at Morro Bay for a martini, or at least call someone on her cell phone. “Hi honey, what are you doing? Oh me, nothing, those guys are just talking about the bowings again.”

I’ve learned a few things about bowings since becoming principal violist. It’s not always possible to bow with every other section all the time. Just last week, there was a minor mutiny over an awkward bowing I’d put in to keep us with the violins. I should have taken to heart Mark Hatchard’s exhortation: “they can be be the violin section, and we’ll be the viola section.” To quote Mary James’s wardrobe: Viola Power!

Also, it’s important to get the bowings set as soon as possible so the section will be able to practice them and feel comfortable. This is not something that comes naturally to me, for two reasons. First, I was trained to mark up rented parts as little as possible. Second, I’m more of an intuitive than an intellectual musician. Too many markings in the part actually mess me up, so I prefer not to write in a ton of bowings, and I’m pretty flexible about them. When I first started as principal, this flexibility posed a problem in that I would sometimes change the bowings right before a concert. These eleventh-hour changes ceased when I learned that the other violists had constructed a David Hennessee voodoo doll, complete with miniature Steve Madden shoes, tiny sideburns, and a melancholy countenance. 

One way to think about bowings is vis-à-vis the Myers-Briggs Jung Typology. You can take the test here: www.humanmetrics.com (I’ve learned from my students that no blog is complete without a personality test.)

Sometimes a bowing just feels right for the music and you do it. I think this is iNtuition being expressed. Other times you really need to think bowings through and mark everything. This sounds like Judging. I feel a lot of tension between these two approaches since I’m an INFJ. It’s kind of challenging to take in information about the world through non-linear, non-rational imagination and still want that world to be ordered and decided. I guess it’s the same with bowings – remain open to inspiration, or attend to every little detail?

I guess the best solution to questions about bowings – as for so many of life’s other burning questions – is an “all-of-the-above” approach. (This is not an endorsement of McCain/Palin.) If it feels right, do it. If it doesn’t, figure something else out. If a metaphor or an image helps get it done, go with that. If nothing comes to mind, fall back on details and technique, and hope for inspiration.

At last, the ride through bowing world is over, and I didn’t even cover ponticello, sul tasto, col legno, Baroque bows vs. modern ones, carbon fiber vs. pernambuco, or why really good bows can cost more than some instruments, or why Lisa Davidson’s bow broke from the heat at last year’s Pops-by-the-Sea-in-Hell Concert.

Here are some parting gifts. Unfortunately, the soloist for the November 8 concert, Alyssa Park, isn’t on YouTube yet, but here’s Anne Akiko Meyers (who’s returning for the May 2, 2009 Season Finale) playing the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto (on the program for November 8.)



Click here for an encore.

(sorry, youtube "embedding" was not available. You'll have to click-thru.)

And here she is back when Reagan was in office:



Finally, here’s an on-topic viola joke: how can you tell when a violist is playing out of tune?

Their bow is moving.

DH

P.S. up next, C is for Conductors, or, It’s Payback Time!