And The Answer Is …

19. September 2008 · 2 comments · Categories: Books, Links, Opera

We just need more tonal harmony. And I thought the decline was because of bad oboe reeds. Whew!

Americans are turning away from classical music. We see evidence of this in declining ticket sales, mounting orchestral bankruptcies, shrinking CD revenues, and a cut- back in radio programming. In an attempt to explain this shift sociologist-turned-composer Paul Breer points to two recent changes in American culture …… the rise of a new egalitarianism and the erosion of traditional Protestant Ethic values. In this anti-elitist, I-want-it-now environment popular entertainment is increasingly favored over classical music and the other fine arts.

Turning to the music itself, he cites the abandonment of tonal harmony in the early 20th C. as a major cause of classical music’s declining popularity. He argues that if classical music has any chance of winning back its audience, it must return to the harmonic idiom used by composers of the past. Given the intractability of today’s music establishment, the person most likely to do that is the independent, self-taught amateur, aided by recent advances in computer technology. The book concludes with a call for a renaissance in amateur composing.

Who knew it was so simple? But the book has the answer, and it was so easy. “Professional” composers need not read the book, Classical Music’s Last Hope. (No link provided. Sorry.)

And then there’s the opera problem:

I left the opera house thinking, “Why can’t this guy write a straight-out melody?” I mean, this is opera: Shouldn’t there be a single aria that you can whistle on the way out of the hall? It doesn’t have to sound like Puccini; I enjoy, even rely on, all kinds of crazy music. But I would like to remember a tune now and then. Is it low-brow of me to have such an expectation?

More melody is Mr. Scheinin’s request. I know some readers have already gone to The Bonesetter’s Daughter. Was this your complaint as well? Is it that there was no tune to sing on your way home. (To be honest, I had no tune in my head as I left Simon Boccanegra last night.)

Thank you, Mr. Sawicki

26. August 2008 · Comments Off · Categories: Books, Oboe, Ramble

One of my oboes — the one I use most frequently — wasn’t functioning properly this morning. I’m not sure if I turned a screw, or if it was just something that moved on its own (yes, they do that sometimes), but something was awry.

Thank goodness for Carl Sawicki’s A Method for Adjusting the Oboe and English Horn. I carefully went through things, step by step.

All’s well. Whew!

Sadly, I don’t see the book in print, or I’d make it a requirement for all university students to purchase it. Really.

Immediate update!
Well, Van Cott Information Services lists it as available. I sure hope this is correct … I’ll email them to verify. (And UCSC students, be ready to purchase this!)

News To Me

30. July 2008 · Comments Off · Categories: Books, Links

It had been a tradition for the musicians to stand on the stage throughout their concerts, until the press noted that “aside from being uncomfortable to them, this looks bad and impressed the spectators uncomfortably.” By 1853 the musicians finally sat down, and were not asked to serve as ushers either, a custom which dissolved that same year, when paid ushers were employed.

I read this on a sample page for the book More than Meets the Ear: How Symphony Musicians Made Labor History

Perhaps I’ve found another book I’ll have to add to my reading list. Someday.

I Wonder What He Really Thinks …?

29. July 2008 · 3 comments · Categories: Books, Links

I wouldn’t waste your money on what to me is a book replete with longwinded and clearly self-serving nonsense from the woodwind section, the seeming case of a blowhard flautist flouting the facts, and of a piccolo player with what might well be the first recorded, severe case of Oboe Envy.

Ouch! The guy who wrote that review certainly doesn’t care for Donald Peck, author of The Right Place, the Right Time!: Tales of Chicago Symphony Days.

I suspect there is a reason for his hostility, but I’m not going to go into that here. I do guess Mr. Peck left some things out of his book. Still, I might want to read it sometime. Our local library reopens on August 23, so I’ll probably wait until then and see if they can get it for me.

Oboist As Bully? Huh?

13. July 2008 · Comments Off · Categories: Books, Links, Ramble

Ipswich resident Maggie Lewis has just published her latest in the children’s Morgy series, ‘Morgy’s Musical Summer.’

This time Morgy goes to a summer music camp with his friends to learn to play the trumpet. But, he misses his family, his cat and his dog and can barely read music. To top it off, Damian, the oboe prodigy and bully, is also at camp this summer.

How does Morgy deal with it all? You’ll have to read the book. ‘Morgy’s Musical Summer’ is published by Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston.

I read it here.

Gee. I almost want to buy this book. Even though I think I’m not the right age for it.

Now I want to read the books. Well. Maybe.

15. January 2008 · Comments Off · Categories: Books, Links, Ramble

CLAIRE WASHBURN
The Medical Examiner
Meet Claire Washburn, Claire is black and heavyset; she always jokes, “I’m in shape…round’s a shape.” Claire is wise, confident, kind and the Chief Medical Examiner for San Francisco. She is married to Edmund, a kettle drum-player in the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. Claire and Edmund have two teenage sons. Her tattoo: an outline of a butterfly just below her waist. She also goes by the nickname “Butterfly” and has it embroidered on her lab coat at work.

This is from a description of a character in a James Patterson novel. I read it here.

I rarely see the timpani called kettle drums these days. Do people still call them that?

Oh well. I do figure I’ll pick up one of the books now. Maybe.

Finally

18. November 2007 · Comments Off · Categories: Books, Links, Ramble

I’m a slow reader. Mostly because I don’t take the time to read, actually. (I spend too much time with my computer … can you tell?) But I did finish Angle of Repose (I still love the book, after all these years.) and I’m finally beginning Alex Ross’s book The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century. I’m only a short way in, but I’m already fascinated. I play music, but I don’t know all that much about the composers, to be honest. (I spent my college years in space cadet land. And no, not because it was the 70s and I did any drugs—believe it or not, I never did that stuff! Too chicken, I guess!—I just wasn’t the best student in the world! How I graduated “with great distinction” is beyond me!). So this is like going back to school … with an excellent instructor! (My music history instructor in college could put us to sleep in the first five minutes of class.)

Anyway, you can expect to see some quotes here that I’ll find as I read!

I’ll Want This Book Too!

17. October 2007 · 3 comments · Categories: Books, Ramble

I realize not everyone isn’t interested in this … but here’s a title I’m interested in:

Marcel Tabuteau: How Do You Expect to Play the Oboe if You Can’t Peel a Mushroom?

And yes, I ordered The Rest Is Noise today!

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