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Molly Sheridan

Laughter and Music

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solomon2.gifby guest blogger Corey Dargel

The late Robert Solomon was a professor of philosophy at the University of Texas.  He had a very fun cameo in the animated film Waking Life. 

Solomon created a lecture series called Philosophy and the Intelligence of Emotions. One of the lectures was titled “Laughter and Music.”

Solomon argued that laughter has very little to do with what’s funny and what’s not funny.  Rather, he believed that laughter is a bonding mechanism; its primary purpose is to create a feeling of connection between members of a certain group.  That’s why people are more likely to laugh at a movie when they’re watching it with a group of people than when they’re watching it alone.  That’s also why racially oriented jokes, for example, are funny to some people and offensive (or at least unfunny) to others.

Solomon believes that music, like laughter, is primarily a bonding mechanism.  Just as people’s senses of humor depend on the groups they associate with, so do people’s feelings about music depend on the context in which they experience it. 

To be sure, music and laughter can still have a bonding effect on someone who listens alone to a recording.  Even in that isolated context, there’s a sense of connection with the artists who made the recording and/or with other people who have listened to the recording.

If you ask someone why a piece of music is “sad,” they tend to give one of the following answers:

1) A piece of music is sad because it arouses sadness in the listener.

2) A piece of music is sad because it was sadness that the author or composer was expressing when he or she composed it.

But, alas, it’s not that simple. 

Music that comforts some people can be used to torture other people.  Conversely, I would bet that we’ve all had the experience of listening to a really depressing piece of music and yet feeling euphoric while listening to it.  Also, the first time people hear a piece of music can sometimes set up a
powerful association that recurs on every subsequent hearing.

According to Solomon, recent research
suggests that adolescence is a special age of life when people are
particularly receptive to different kinds of music.  Perhaps what they hear during that
time is something they carry with them, something that sets the
patterns of musical meaning for the rest of their lives.

You Can Make Me Feel Bad if You Want to

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by guest blogger Corey Dargel

Eric G. Wilson’s polemical book, against happiness, is not as dismal or misanthropic as you might expect from its title.  It’s less against happiness in general than it is against a certain kind of performed happiness or superficial happiness.  Wilson wants us to embrace melancholy as a means of experiencing beauty in the world.  After all, he argues, part of what makes something profoundly beautiful is knowing that it will eventually pass away.
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I’m sympathetic to Wilson’s point of view, but when I think about art and culture (as opposed to, say, friends, loved ones, and pets), I’m not sure his philosophy of beauty holds up.  

Certainly the performing arts are ephemeral, but what about sculpture, painting, and film?  What about recordings of music?  Maybe Wilson would say that while some objects of art are relatively permanent, our experiences of them are not, and it is our experiences of these objects that we find beautiful.  Or maybe he would argue that sculpture, painting, film, recordings, etc., are representations of something ephemeral (i.e. a photograph of a time and place that no longer exists)

As I’m writing this, I’m thinking about the cellist/singer/composer Arthur Russell who died in 1992, at the age of 40.  Every time I listen to his music, I imagine what a better place the world would be if there were twice as many Arthur Russell songs in it.  What if we could still go out to see Russell perform his songs in concert?  How would he have embraced the exponential progress in music technology since his death?  

Maybe Wilson is right.  Maybe the fact that Arthur Russell passed away enhances my experience of his music, but I think I would be just as madly in love with it if he was still alive.

Purposeless Purposefulness

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by guest blogger, Corey Dargel

Greetings, everyone, and thank you to Molly for the invitation to drive this thing while she’s away. 

I’ll shift into third gear immediately by raising an issue that has caused much internal conflict for me, as a composer/performer and especially as a writer of songs — my desire to balance personal expression with multiplicity of meaning.  This conflict of mine was recently reinvigorated by a performance of Sean Griffin‘s piece, Buffalo ’70, at the final concert of the 2008 MATA Festival in Brooklyn, NY.

Buffalo70.gifBuffalo ’70
is a fine piece of music.  It is intricate, funny, smart, theatrical,
and thoroughly engaging.  The performers at the MATA concert — a
combination of musicians from the New York-based ensembles Newspeak and Either/Or — executed the piece with precision and conviction, and the audience responded very positively.

Nevertheless, Griffin said some things about the piece that drastically restricted my experience of it.  In the program notes, he writes:

[Buffalo ’70] is a musical question about an encounter between John Cage and Julius Eastman… I hope to dramatize a shift in aesthetics and political strategies employed by composers at the time.  My intention is to have this work speak to the broader cultural shifts in expression and identity in the political landscape of the late 1970s and the return to a more brutally conservative America in the 1980s.

In 1970, composer/performer Julius Eastman was performing sections of John Cage’s Song Books and included gay references in his realization of the work. Although allowed by the score itself, Cage became angry and famously objected with a violent outburst…

Before the performance, Griffin spoke briefly to the concert audience.  He clarified his intent by announcing that Julius Eastman was his favorite composer and that Buffalo ’70 is comprised of a number of John Cage’s pieces all realized with deliberate inappropriateness.  He also put forward a dubious theory that Cage’s outburst somehow led to Eastman’s tragic personal unravelling.

Knowing that Buffalo ’70 was, at least in part, a disparaging parody of John Cage’s music all but erased its potential for multiple interpretations.  This constriction of meaning is, I think, one of the things that upset Cage about Eastman’s performance of Song Books.  And Cage was not the only one who was upset.  The conductor of that performance, Petr Kotik, described Eastman’s behavior as “sabotage.”

All of this got me thinking: It may be that Cage represents the epitome of one kind of high-modernism — the desire to create works of art in which the personal identities and emotions of the artists are completely absent.  The opposite of that, I suppose, would be art as purely a vehicle for self-expression, or what I like to call “art as therapy.”

Is the incorporation into “fine art” of identity politics and self-expression the kind of “cultural shift in expression and identity” that Griffin is referring to in his program notes?  Is the “more brutally conservative America” a reference to the culture wars of the 1980s and 1990s during which Senator Helms et al attacked artists who received government funding to create so-called blasphemous works of art?  That is what I assume Griffin is talking about.  

But there’s another side to that argument.  The mentality of art-as-self-expression, combined with the politically correct, uncritical acceptance of identity politics in art, has led to plenty of overly sentimental vanity projects.  This is another kind of “brutally conservative” approach to making art which is just as lamentable as the reactionary philistinism of Helms and company.

I Think I See One!

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I know we just started this engine, but I’ll be stepping away from my desk for the next two weeks. For the health and sanity of myself and my loved ones, I’ll also be unplugging from the internet during this hiatus. 

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While I’m off scrunching my toes in black sand, hunting gnomes, and trying not to think about checking my email, please enjoy the blog stylings of syncretic composer/performer/writer/audio engineer/romantic and all-round swell guy Corey Dargel, who has graciously agreed to play party host in this space while I’m gone. 

If I had an iPhone, I’d be turning it off right now. Kind sir, the floor is yours.

You’ve Got to Pick a Pocket or Two

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I also have marveled at James Fallows’ word count, particularly when I’m looking for the inspiration to generate both the quality and the quantity of typing that blogging seems to demand. So tonight I will play the “picture equals” card and cheat by drawing your attention to a video clip:



Yes, yes, silly, ha-ha, but you might be willing to admit that there’s a
little bit of parity in here related to the broader implications of
museum culture in the performing arts–and how audiences stop by to gawk
a bit and wander around and then go home and watch another episode of
“Law & Order.” We come, we look and listen (at least a little), but in the end do
we take away or do we cross off as “accomplished,” in the dental cleaning or “20 years since my last confession” sense?

***

I had the chance to hear the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra play not one
but two Beethoven symphonies last week, with a fantastic violin concerto
by Thomas Adès sandwiched in between. I give Baltimore mad props for an
entire season stuffed with the names and faces of living composers, and
in this case, Adès actually served as conductor for the entire evening’s
program as well. Though it wasn’t a flawless performance, it was
something more–awake. The hall was very full and vocally
appreciative.

Still, it was a gluttony of Beethoven. I confess I was quite distracted
towards the end and I found myself looking around and wondering if I
would catch the wandering eyes of any other similarly stuffed patrons.
(As it turns out, a few rows back Anne Midgette was asking herself the same questions I was, but on
a deeper level than I could muster.) It’s been almost a week, and I
haven’t figured out why we were listening to so much Beethoven yet either. I
wasn’t sure that anyone else in the crowd could have told me, but I was
wrong. I’m not any less uncomfortable now that I have an answer,
however. I mean, if a big name on the marque is what it takes to get ’em in the door, can I at least get a backbeat for
a little something unexpected?

And then this morning I stumbled on Mark Swed’s piece in the L.A.
Times which, to be honest, only takes “dummy consumption” as its
jumping off point. Still, it got me with a line. He writes, “The Atlanta
orchestra takes pride in sending its listeners home happy, having been
given a big sonic hug and assured everything will be all right.”

I don’t always know what I want out of performances when I go
these days, but I don’t arrive looking to be cuddled. If I think it over
now, I want it to push me around a little, just like that professor in
undergrad who never followed the syllabus and gave us extra books to
read at the last minute–and we read them, too, and hung around after class, even though we were already overwhelmed by how much we had to do, just like those cheesy movie plots. Teacher shows delinquent children the path to brilliance and self-actualization!

But then again, the BSO’s performance wasn’t about me or my self-actualization, it was about us in the city of
Baltimore. I got the chance to hear Adès in my new hometown. While complaining about gluttony, perhaps I was the one getting greedy.

How Many Colors in Your Crayon Box?

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I want to take some of the issues in my last post a little further, particularly jumping off a comment left by friend and colleague Ian Moss. He writes:

To me, that freedom is the stereotype. No matter what, you’re going to hear stuff that you don’t hear every day, and that isn’t limited by someone else’s idea of what music is supposed to be. That’s not very specific, but I think it captures the creative impulse that is shared by those who call themselves composers.

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And in response I am moved to write, “Exactly!” Many people (Hi, mom!) say they want music to comfort them, to keep them company in their day-to-day life. It’s the sort of music you find on the radio, even if it’s the intellectual hits on All Songs Considered. But for the subset seeking “new” music–that “unlimited” music we’re talking about here–that audience tends to be conversely very open to a wide range of sound, stylistically speaking. But for their patronage and support, how can we do better by them?

Brian and I have been having a lot of car-ride conversations about this issue as he gets a music series up and running here in Baltimore at the Contemporary Museum. Maybe it’s the city or the venue, but this is not an academic exercise. “Quirky” is actually the new music box it’s tough to stay out of in this town. So we’ve spent a lot of time talking about ways to build up the trust of a new audience base. How do you get to the point that you can really stretch out as far as you like as a curator without anyone getting nervous? This means the focus has to be on consistently delivering quality, not a gimmick.

And at points, the discussions have been as basic as: Should we have a lighting designer come in? Should there be snacks? What should we wear? These are not frivolous decisions, because I would argue that it does play into the music you’ll be able to present and the distance you’ll be able to take your audience with you. It’s the same as saying, “Let’s respect ourselves and all our massive amounts of training enough to do this well, right down to the last detail.” You may be focused on the repertoire, but your audience is taking in the entire event.

Draw Me a Picture

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My liberal arts education began, strangely enough, with a book that explored why stereotyping was necessary and good. The author’s point (sorry–for the life of me I cannot remember his name or the title of the text) was not to encourage the blanket hatred of groups of people or the dismissal of new thoughts and ideas, but rather to suggest that without stereotypes, it would be impossible to function. Sure, we need to remain open to contradictions in our personally formed stereotypes and amenable to modifications, but if we didn’t have them in the first place and instead had to think through every interaction we had from the beginning, we’d probably find it impossible to locate the car keys and leave the house.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what the identifying “new music” stereotypes are, and some of you have been leaving comments with similar thoughts and questions. If we’re not cool like the jazzers, not hip like the indie rockers, and not formal like mainstream classical musicians, what are we? As a genre, it seems we are uncomfortable, or at least not cohesive. We cannot be recognized as a group for who we are musically by the presentation of our concerts or the slant of our cowboy hats. It’s easy to see how this freedom is liberating. But is it also paralyzing and, to some extent, a little lonely–each new ensemble and collective trying to make it up fresh for themselves? 

Instead of borrowing identifiers from our neighboring genres, which often fit us poorly, I’m curious: If you were passed the magic scepter and told you could dictate, how would you want new music to be stereotyped? Of course that’s not how it works. A stereotype is an average–and a popularity contest (for better and worse). But if the music itself has no common practice, can (or should) the presentation and the performers have some semblance of one anyway? Instead of glancing left and right at what the other kids are doing, what tailored-to-fit features could we make distinctly (and comfortably) our own? 

Lessons I Learned While Wearing Leather Pants

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I’ve been on this internet block long enough that I should have known better than to title a post “Did I mention the naked dancing girls?“. Inevitably, this has waylaid a few Google researchers on their way to other places, but to them I say, “Welcome! Stay for the hot intellectual discussion about culture!”

But actually, that brings the conversation neatly around to the importance of honesty and straightforwardness in audience development. The “butts in seats” movement is often focused on inspiring folks who are not already in the club in such a way that they will feel interested enough or comfortable enough to walk through the gilded gates. And those efforts are sometimes wonderfully well-intentioned. And sometimes they are not–they just fulfill things like the “audience diversity” line in grant requirements. In either case, attracting attention by posing as something else is often the go-to tactic in these operations, and it doesn’t do anyone much good. More often it just makes everyone feel a little silly, or worse. My mom once told me that a cough medicine was just some Kool-Aid before she plunged the spoon into my unsuspecting mouth. I feel resentment about that rude shock to this day.

Recently I had the chance to chat with some students who were trying to make a go of a performance career backed by a serious amount of classical training. These people were all heavyweights in the skill dept. Some of them also signaled a particular cross-scene comfort with trendy haircuts and demonstrative clothing choices. But this left other performers in the room with questions. They didn’t want to be cool like this or hip like them. They loved the work of some obscure 17th-century Baroque composer and wanted to present that work to their audiences. Still, life as a performing musician was already hard enough; was this a point that they would have to concede? Was a faux-cool-like-that stance the only way to an audience? Was a MySpace page and an American Apparel wardrobe seriously the only way?

If I had felt it was appropriate to yell in such a well-appointed conference room, I would have taken the opportunity to plead, “NO! NO! PLEASE STOP AND THINK BEFORE YOU DRINK THAT/PIERCE THAT/LET THAT MAN TATTOO THAT ON YOUR BODY!!”

If anything is clear to me while my nose is pressed this close to today, it’s that people–the strangers you pass on the street everyday–are interested in the lives, loves, hopes, and dreams of real people. Reality TV, Facebook, and blogging have been good for that lesson, if nothing else. But what has evolved out of that is a demand for truth. We have only to look at the history-stretching memoirists who’ve been taken to the gallows to see how serious the audience is on this point. Stories are no longer good enough; we want to escape into each other’s stranger-than-fiction realities. So express that. Don’t traipse awkwardly in heels through repertoire you wouldn’t buy yourself. Say your own thing, and–just as importantly–say it very well, very loudly, and with all the conviction you can gather. Your audience–maybe 3,000, maybe 30–but your audience, is waiting for you.

The Many Sides of Tagging

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The first time I was tagged, I was no where near any books, so I thought I could sneak away quietly. But the second time I was tapped, I realized there was no escaping karma, so here ’tis.

The rules of the meme:

1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people, and acknowledge who tagged you.

This passage comes to us courtesy of Vikram Chandra’s Sacred Games, nearly 1000 pages of film noir that’s been kicked down a Bollywood alley. Good stuff.

“‘Gaitonde,’ he said, ‘they are bajaoing your baja, you better run away and hide, you’ll get finished.’ After our thirteenth death, three of my boys just didn’t appear for morning attendence the next day. I knew they hadn’t been killed, but that they had just walked away from a losing game.”

I believe I’ve lunched with some performing arts professionals who sport pretty much the same outlook.

I send the iChain along to The Husband, The Professor, The Journalist, The Ethnomusicologist (who swears he wants to play in the mud of new music with us), and The Man Who Introduced Me To My Life. Play ball.

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