David's Blogs

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Sat, 21 Nov 2009 06:47 GMT

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One...

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 08:53 GMT

One Leaf

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Quartet _______________________________________________________...

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 05:25 GMT

Quartet

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“simple desire to tell the stories of Los...

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 05:25 GMT

“simple desire to tell the stories of Los Angeles.”

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Why LA Opera is creating an opera about the 110 Freeway. In this LA Times article.

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FACEBALL ______________________________________________________...

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 04:00 GMT

FACE
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Musical Signs

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 19:25 GMT

Check out a tuneful restaurant, ride in a fast RV, buy some fancy clothing, enjoy wine with multiple voices, sip some Bachian java or relax in Mozartean elegance.

This is the third of a series. In part one we learned the words trio, forte, cornet, arpeggio, aria and allegro. In part two there was koda, tritono and concerto.

Shadow...

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 04:00 GMT

Shadow Ladder

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Cowboy...

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 04:00 GMT

Cowboy Yarn

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FLAP

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 11:57 GMT

For some reason I keep making videos of birds. First there was Birds Who Don't Know The Words. Then there was SQUAWK! Now, here is FLAP.

Copyright © 2009 David Ocker - 121 seconds

The video was shot from the pier at Avila Beach, California, last month. Here's a satellite picture.

This small city underwent a "remediation" in which old buildings were destroyed, 200,000 tons of contaminated soil replaced by uncontaminated and new buildings constructed. This was all because of a pipeline leak. Additionally, Avila Beach is just a few miles from the earthquake-fault-adjacent Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Station. Nice place to visit.

FLAP is the first original piece I've completed on my Macintosh: the music in Sibelius and the video in iMovie. If everything about it makes sense to you, seek professional help. Koo-koo-ka-choo!

The first picture is Avila Pier at sunset. The second is underneath the pier. That's Leslie contemplating her ocean.

Flap Tags: David Ocker. . . Avila Beach California. . . music video

ARTNT...

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 04:00 GMT

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FLAP!

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 12:42 GMT

	FLAP! Water fowl filmed in Avila Beach California. Music and video (c) 2009 by David Ocker Possibly this is a sequel to SQUAWK! www.youtube.com (Well, they're both about birds.)	From: docker1 Views: 0 0 ratings
	Time: 02:01	More in Pets & Animals

“both fields are so deeply invested in their own traditions that they tend to confuse those...

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 04:44 GMT

“both fields are so deeply invested in their own traditions that they tend to confuse those traditions with their function.”

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BOTH = orchestras and newspapers.

Anne Midgette writing in this article.

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SING WALK _____________________________________________________...

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 04:00 GMT

SING

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Songs of Pasadena

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 20:26 GMT

Weeks ago I posted about Pasadena, a hit sung by the Euro-pop group Maywood. You may want to get up to speed by reading that post before continuing with this sequel.

Later, Ben Harper, one of Mixed Meters' Three Readers, offered up a song by John Paul Young called It's a Long Long Way to Pasadena. JPY is as well known in the United States as Maywood. The link Ben offered has been removed due to copyright - but here's the golden oldie version sung live.

Another of Mixed Meters' Three Readers, Charles Ulrich, alerted me to a much earlier tune known as Pasadena (although it is actually entitled Home in Pasadena because that's how the lyric goes). This one was written by Harry Warren who wrote hundreds of famous songs in the twenties, thirties and forties.

Home in Pasadena was written in 1923 and it was a big hit, first in the U.S. then in England. You can listen to a very early version via YouTube. Charles sent me this different version where the vocalist makes up his own melody in the chorus. (Warning: Pace yourself! There are a lot more listening links coming along soon.)

I looked online for even more songs about this city where I've lived for a dozen years. What I found was a book called The Golden Ear, A Treasury of Songs to Pasadena by Carter Barber. You can read the L.A. Times review. I purchased a copy through some unsuspecting online bookseller. Here's a composite of the front and back covers. (Click to enlarge.)

Self-published in 1985, it seems to be from the "who said what to whom" school of journalism. Largely it details a whole host of mostly unknown songs about Pasadena, the effort to pick a City Song for the centennial celebration in 1986 and the politics and petty squabbles surrounding their inevitable obscurity. The book has the lyrics for 38 Pasadena songs, although Maywood's and John Paul Young's are not included.

Whether Pasadena has an official song at the moment, whether anyone knows what it is and whether anyone cares about a Pasadena song are all whethers about which I don't much care.

Here's Ian Whitcomb, an actual Pasadena resident, singing Home in Pasadena. Since the sheet music is printed in The Golden Ear I was able to determine this is the definitive online performance.

Here's Van Dyke Parks singing Home In Pasadena - with spirit if not with much precision.

Here's Jan and Dean singing Little Old Lady From Pasadena.

Here's a five-year old Bulgarian girl singing and dancing to Maywood's Pasadena.

Here's an over-the-top music video of Maywood's Passadena in some other language.

Here's a song called (Let's Move to) Pasadena by the band Modern Skirts.

Pasadena is more than just the name of a song. It can be the name of a band as well.

In England they have The Pasadena Roof Orchestra apparently named for Home in Pasadena. (Here's their Wikipedia page.) This video is Puttin' on the Ritz. (Dig the patina on that tenor sax.)

Here's a band called Pasadena singing their song Realize. (Strangely, they think Pasadena is somewhere in Maryland.)

Here's a band The Pasadenas singing Riders on a Train.

Yeah, that marks the end of this topic.

Tired of Pasadena Song Tags: Pasadena California. . . popular+songs. . . At Home in Pasadena. . . Harry Warren. . . Ian Whitcomb. . . Maywood. . . John Paul Young. . . The Golden Ear. . . Carter Barber

Fork in the...

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 04:00 GMT

Fork in the Road

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(Click here to see this intersection in Google Street View)

(Read a news article here.)

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Oil and Water Mix

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 19:45 GMT

Click here to listen to Oil and Water Mix right now and avoid all the tedious reading.

Earlier this year I heard a radio broadcast of Francis Poulenc's Concerto for Two Pianos, although the announcer called it Ravel's Concerto for the Left Hand. The Poulenc had been a favorite of mine in college days. I hadn't listened to it in a very long time. I enjoyed hearing it again.

Soon afterwards, inspired by the Poulenc, I decided to compose some simple, melodic music filled with lots of tonics and dominants. I wrote one little passage, then another and another, not bothering much with any sense of structure. I called the piece "Not Dissonant and Not Complex". Catchy, huh?

When "Not Dissonant and Not Complex" reached about four minutes I was forced to confront the fact that it wasn't very interesting. I hatched a new plan: I would interpolate bits of a completely different sort of music - random sounding notes - into what I had already written.

Thus the idea of "oil and water" was born: two radically different musical styles, each in turn ignoring the other, then cavorting with the other, then battling for supremacy. One type of music is "oil", the other is "water". You can decide which is which.

The word "mix" gets a lot of use in music. Mostly it refers to the result of audio manipulation of some already recorded tracks. I'm using the word "mix" in more of an active, verbal sense. Think of the sentence "Listen to me make oil and water mix."

The entire piece, both oil and water, is carefully composed. Certain sections sound random because I tried hard to make them that way. I adjusted each pitch, rhythm and dynamic to produce maximum variety. No Cageian chance methods were employed while composing Oil and Water Mix. None were needed.

It has already been remarked several times by people who have heard Oil and Water Mix that it seems to wander aimlessly, pointlessly. I do understand this reaction. But in fact the piece is divided into sections and certain melodies are repeated several times.

If you think that following this "formal structure" might be helpful as you listen I have added an analysis of Oil and Water Mix. You can find this on the playback page. Just click here and then scroll down a bit.

It's hardly a rigorous analysis, completely unworthy of a doctoral student in musicology. I had different choices about how to name things - for example - Section Two might actually be just a coda to Section One and Section Three might merely be a slow prelude to Section Four. You might want to listen for the short silence at 5'22" between sections two and three.

Mixed Meters' Three Readers may remember long ago, when I started posting my own short pieces, I lumped them together into a category called Thirty Second Spots. Later I started writing longer pieces for which I invented a new category, Three Minute Climaxes. Eventually I needed a third name for even longer pieces. I called these Ten Minute Breaks. (Think of the word "break" in the sense of a "coffee break".) The actual lengths vary above and below the stated time limits; please don't let that bother you.

Oil and Water Mix, at eleven minutes and six seconds, qualifies as a Ten Minute Break.

I now have composed five Ten Minute Breaks: They are

Thinking With Other People's Words (click here to listen, click here to read the related post)
Eating the Desiccant (never posted online because I like it too much)
Poof You're A Pimp (click here to listen, click here to read the post)
Formal Introduction (this one has been "nearly" finished for almost a year)
Oil and Water Mix (click here to listen, you are already reading the related post.)

Oil and Water Tags: Oil and Water Mix. . . David Ocker. . . Francis Poulenc. . . random music

“Mr. Price. Please don’t try to make things nice. All the wrong notes are...

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 15:01 GMT

“Mr. Price. Please don’t try to make things nice. All the wrong notes are right.”

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Charles Ives memo to his copyist. Quoted in Peter Yates’ Twentieth Century Music, p.9

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Use...

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 05:41 GMT

Use Crosswalk

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“And the good news is that Rock Band will soon be opening its format to classical...

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 04:00 GMT

“And the good news is that Rock Band will soon be opening its format to classical music.”

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Michael Gordon in the NYTimes.

(Okay, and what’s the BAD news?)

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Hidden Meanings

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:32 GMT

These are carefully cropped pictures of various Pasadena signs. This process reveals secret messages.

And here are two in honor of Halloween.

The last is part of a church name. Sorry, no pictures of pumpkins this year. You can find some here. One of MM's earliest posts concerned Halloween movies.

Similar silly MM photo essays:
Crooked
Musical Merchants
Branches Before Blue
Gloves In the Wild
Fence Shadows
Graffiti Animals of California
Buckets for Babies in Pasadena
HALF GRASSED

This one, Taggers With Spellcheck, also deals with words.

Here's a bonus.

Partial Tags: partial signs. . . hidden meaning. . . Halloween

Hell Mouth

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 16:04 GMT

John Adams, the most successful composer, has been my top client for decades. Hey John, thanks for all the work! (I mean, really.)

But he has shown very unusual lack of judgment recently by starting his own blog, Hell Mouth. I think the picture which begat this strange name must have been taken by John's wife, the photographer Deborah O'Grady.

Hell Mouth is starting at a furious pace: he's written five posts, extensive essays, in a little over a week. Here at MM I feel overworked if I do five short posts a month. But I've been at this for a while (4 years last month) and understandably my enthusiasm has waned.

John is a good writer. His skills have been honed recently by his biography Hallelujah Junction. I like his adjectives.

One of John's posts is entitled: On Surviving a First Rehearsal discussing the composition and premier of his most recent work City Noir (actually his third symphony). The public perception of how a piece of music travels from a composer's brain to a concert stage is a complete mystery to nearly everyone - even to some musicians. My job puts me right in the middle of one facet of that process. This explains why a lot of people have no clue about what I do for a living.

John devotes one paragraph to me.

City Noir is so densely layered that I need two full manuscript pages to embrace all the parts. Hell for the copyist, who is nonetheless unfazed, a total pro. David—started out playing clarinet with Frank Zappa. After 24 years knows my intentions nearly well enough to fill out a line that I’ve forgotten to write out.

Very cool.

Later John mentions the first rehearsal of City Noir led by boy wonder Gustavo Dudamel in Walt Disney Hall. I was one of very few people allowed to listen. The musicians had prepared for the rehearsal but none of them could have much of an inkling how John intended their parts to fit together. Loud things came out soft. Soft things loud. It came apart. It came back together again. Somehow Dudamel kept it all racing along - the entire piece. When he conducts, his hair subdivides the beat.

The composer, conductor and all the players were hard at work. Their job was to make City Noir sound correct; they had a very limited time for this. On the other hand, my job had been completed weeks before. I was just hanging out, listening in a manner none of them could afford, following the score as it whipped past.

And I was blown away. A roller coaster with breakneck twists and turns could never be that much fun. It was a simply amazing, mind-blowing thirty minutes of music, as if the spirit of Charles Mingus had somehow gotten into the souls of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. It was rough. It was raw. It rocked. Most likely I was the only one there enjoying this experience, it was indeed a great time which I shall not soon forget. At the end I just laughed.

Of course, you could never intentionally make an orchestra play like that. You do not tell a symphony orchestra to "Wail". By the second rehearsal the piece was taking its proper shape. Each rehearsal refined the music a bit more. I liked the finished piece as well. It's also a wild ride. But not as wild as that first reading.

Future orchestras, preparing City Noir, will have recordings to refer to so players will know when to project and when to hold back. The one-time unique experience I witnessed, nothing at all like the piece itself, is lost forever.

John also mentions how the players ask him questions - including about the B Double Sharp. I heard a lot about this note before and during the rehearsals. For you non-musicians, a B Double Sharp is a completely theoretical musical notation - it sounds the same as the familiar pitch C sharp. I can't think of a reason it would ever be used legitimately. Any suggestions?

This particular B Double Sharp is played by the Second Violins, Violas and Second Trumpet in measure 183 of movement one of City Noir. I just checked again. It really is in the manuscript - twice. Had I been thinking more clearly, I would have just changed it to a C#. The music would have sounded identical and no one would have noticed. Even the composer himself.

Read about how I was reduced to tears by a performance of one of John's pieces.
Read any or all of the Mixed Meters posts tagged "John Adams".

Hell Mouth Tags: John Adams. . . Hell Mouth. . . City Noir

“Orchestras are notoriously dysfunctional...

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 09:21 GMT

“Orchestras are notoriously dysfunctional places”

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Anne Midgette in the Washington Post on the subject of conductors who hire themselves out as motivational speakers.

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Sidewalk...

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:22 GMT

Sidewalk Octopus

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Strained ...

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 19:33 GMT

Strained

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First Sign of the Holidays

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 10:41 GMT

Yes, fresh from the land of cryptozoology, it's a Christmas Penguin.

This one was collected by Leslie in Armstrong's Pasadena Garden Center. She reports that they came in many sizes. This is a small specimen.

Read Stalking the Christmas Penguin
Read Stalking the Christmas Penguin 2
Read Christmas in October (it ends up discussing table grapes).

Penguin Tags: penguins. . . Christmas penguins

David's Blogs

ROOF ________________________________________________________ ....

ROOF

One...

One Leaf

Quartet _______________________________________________________...

Quartet

“simple desire to tell the stories of Los...

“simple desire to tell the stories of Los Angeles.”

FACEBALL ______________________________________________________...

FACEBALL

Musical Signs

Shadow...

Shadow Ladder

Cowboy...

Cowboy Yarn

FLAP

ARTNT...

ARTNT I

FLAP!

“both fields are so deeply invested in their own traditions that they tend to confuse those...

“both fields are so deeply invested in their own traditions that they tend to confuse those traditions with their function.”

SING WALK _____________________________________________________...

SING

WALK

Songs of Pasadena

Fork in the...

Fork in the Road

Oil and Water Mix

“Mr. Price. Please don’t try to make things nice. All the wrong notes are...

“Mr. Price. Please don’t try to make things nice. All the wrong notes are right.”

Use...

Use Crosswalk

“And the good news is that Rock Band will soon be opening its format to classical...

“And the good news is that Rock Band will soon be opening its format to classical music.”

Hidden Meanings

Hell Mouth

“Orchestras are notoriously dysfunctional...

“Orchestras are notoriously dysfunctional places”

Sidewalk...

Sidewalk Octopus

Strained ...

Strained

First Sign of the Holidays

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