Ringmasters: Katherine Young

In the spirit of full disclosure: Katherine Young is a close personal collaborator of mine.  I'll be premiering an evening-long work for solo violin(s) that we constructed over the course more than a year on September 27 in Chicago.  Our piece, like much of her work, lives at the intersection of improvisation and notated music as well as exploring the potential of sounds that might seem too small to be significant at first glance.

The quartet is very happy to name her as a good friend as well.  She plays bassoon in the band Pretty Monsters, who opened for us at The Hideout in June, and she's working on an arrangement of this lovely Arthur Russell tune for our Oct. 26 Album Release Party.  

But, until you can hear the results of her ringtone creativity, why not check out one section of Katherine and my project (called: Diligence Is to Magic as Progress Is to Flight) and hear the gritty sound-world we created with a strangely prepared violin we bought on Amazon?

Ringmasters: Marek Poliks

Marek Poliks write music that "mines for expressivity in threadbare spaces, exhausted resources, and modes of interdiction." He lives on the edge of notated music, writing pieces that focus heavily on the performer's interaction with the score.  The complex, and visually beautiful notation inspires multiple modes of response from interpreters and the sonic results are similarly multivalent.

I had a real freak-out when I heard his string quartet "ordinances(B)".  The strangled shimmers and terrifying groans of the instruments create a haze of harmony that challenge my ear and imagination.  As the notes fade in and out of speaking, I wonder: "How much space can music occupy in the world, and in my mind?"

Ringmasters: Morgan Krauss

 Morgan Krauss has quickly emerged as a prolific and preternaturally talented composer, recently receiving 1st prize at the 2013 Orkest de ereprijs YCM competition.  She describes her work as aiming to "produce tactile explorations based on ones physical awareness and elements of sensuality."

Her pieces live up to this description, hovering at the edge of incredible expectation here...

...and with this overwhelming texture of obscured language and secret messages: 

Ringmasters: David Skidmore

Deep grooves and beautifully resonant harmonies typify David Skidmore's "Common Patterns in Uncommon Time", which you can hear an amazing clip of on here.  It's not every day that you find a performer capable of playing in a group as busy, cohesive and polished as Third Coast Percussion that also finds time to write excellent music.  We can't wait to see what he'll do once he gets his hands on the string quartet!

Oh, and check him out in action with Third Coast here...this is awesome:

Museum of Modern Art - John Cage Day - Third Coast Percussion - August 9, 2012 from Third Coast Percussion on Vimeo.

Ringmasters: Sarah Ritch

Sarah Ritch is the closest of close friends to the Spektral Quartet.  Before we'd even fully formed as a quartet, Aurelien and I got together on a Tuesday afternoon to read duets, drink a little vodka, and get to know each other.  Sarah was there, and the first to let us know that we had a long way to go if we were going to learn to match sounds in a string quartet.  Why was she there?  Oh yeah, she's married to Aurelien.

She's a savvy tech-expert and capable of wearing many hats: from composer, to Google Glass pioneer, to Director of Educational Outreach at the Beethoven Festival...and she gives a great interview involving music and technology.  Plus, here's another interview between her and another good buddy of the quartet, Andrew Tham.

I think this duo (with a very old-school Aurelien look going on) depicts how she may have hoped Aurelien and my reading session had ended:

Ringmasters: Bernard Rands

It's an honor to include the Pulitzer Prize-winning Bernard Rands in the killer stable of  composers for our Mobile Miniatures project.  He's worked with countless top artists, lauded in the press and received countless awards.  But, the most exciting part of working with him on this project is to experience his great sensitivity to line and poetic sensibilities as we develop his miniature musical moment.

2014 marks Bernard's 80th birthday, and we also have performances of his Second String Quartet to look forward to.  This is a finely sculpted piece with a great understanding of the quartet as a medium.  To hear a masterful composer in full command of a genre and wringing deep expression from string instruments, take a listen.  We can't wait to learn it!

Ringmasters: Julia Holter

I've known Julia Holter since my undergraduate years at the University of Michigan.  While I didn't know her well back then, I've followed her amazing progression into an indie sensation after her move to Los Angeles for grad school at Cal Arts.

Among several good friends of the quartet (and in the spirit of full disclosure: fellow Michigan alums Chris F-L and on our blog Alex Temple), long discussions were had about her intriguing and labyrinthine song Marienbad.   And I've been nothing short of enthralled with her new album Loud City Song.  I'm pretty confident I've listened to Into The Green Wild at least 30 times.  Check it out now:

Ringmasters: Jen Wang

I first became acquainted with Jen Wang's music in Darmstadt last summer.  As a recipient of a "Staubach Honorarium", she had composed a new work for New York's excellent Talea Ensemble.  It was a great moment in the festival from my perspective as it showed that even in a place as famously rarified as Darmstadt, the zeitgeist has shifted toward acceptance of a wide range of musical aesthetics.

I've kept an eye on what she's been up to ever since with keen interest in what's happening in the Bay Area.  Jen is incredibly active as a composer and administrator as a co-Director of the Wild Rumpus collective and as curator at the Center For New Music.

A wonderfully sonically aware composer, Jen's sense for the development of sounds is on full display in this wonderful percussion quartet (make sure to click through to the second half):

Ringmasters: Jay Alan Yim

I've known Jay Alan Yim since my time as a graduate student at Northwestern University.  I had a fantastic time in his "Music Since 1975" class, including sprawling conversations about aesthetic issues that somehow wound up talking about initially unrelated issues and being forced to engage with music I thought (and continue to think, in some cases) that I hated.

Jay is a composer of incredible intellect and wide-ranging interests.  His scores can range from the carefully constructed and sculptural "Blue Voice of Air" (that you can check out below) to this spacious multi-layered structure with elements of improvisation I was a part of performing back in 2009.

I always imagine a bold, geometrically bristling modern sculpture when I hear this piece.  Also, fish making music...c'mon!

Ringmasters: Liza White

We've gotten to know Liza White well since this last spring.  We premiered her "Zin Zin Zin Zin" (a raucous short work based on a scat by Mos Def) back in May, and had a fantastic time getting all its moving parts and criss-crossing lines into place for our debut disc.  You can look forward to the full piece then, and in the meantime we'll be working with her on a brand new ringtone.

Were you wondering if Liza knows how to put together an exciting and energetic piece of music?  If so, you haven't heard "Zin", but check out "Freestyle" on her website...each section of this barn-burner is based on different hip-hop dance moves!

And, because great music is great, check out Mos Def with The Roots...ZIN ZIN ZIN ZIN!

Ringmasters: Ted Hearne

On a personal level, I am nothing short of squealing with joy that Ted Hearne agreed to be a part of our Mobile Miniatures project.  I've listened to his album under the guise of R WE WHO R WE, his project with Philip White, countless times.  Check out the project and his music...two things I'm independently and mutually pumped about!

Check out the madness live, linked above, or listen to what may be my favorite cover of all time: his version of Mariah Carey's Emotions.  Y'know that original is pretty darn good too...

Old Man and the NostalgiC

In writing up the press materials for our upcoming Sampler Pack concert on August 31st, I've found myself referring to Britten's Three Divertimenti as "pop-music-posing-as-classical." As a music writer doing daily battle with reductive genre labels, this hyphenated moniker is a little cheap on my part, and when it comes down to it, only applies to the second movement Waltz.

 

In any case, "pop" is not a pejorative term in my world. While studying this piece, I've been continually astounded by the simplicity and ear-worm-iness of each melody. Where it becomes distinctly Britten is in the sterling orchestration, clarity of the primary voice, and of course, the occasional gnarly harmonic breakdown. What struck me when I first heard the Waltz, though, was how perfectly this innocent tune would slip into pretty much any Wes Anderson film ever. Like Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums or Moonrise Kingdom, the naiveté of adults and children alike is thrown into stark contrast with the often cold realities of life. 

 

During an early rehearsal of the Waltz, Aurelien commented that the music evoked for him the picture of a young girl who, while twirling about, has tiny glimpses of future hardships. Shifting harmonies that lead back to the theme and a mid-movement agitato/con fuoco passage are the broken hearts here. There is something about 3/4 time signatures that stirs the nostalgic, the wistful and the unblemished in us. Perhaps it is because it's the first style we learn in ballroom dance class. We all did cotillion, right? Right? Oh boy…

 

Not all 3/4 tunes are waltzes, but that fact notwithstanding, there's something about 3/4 and 6/8 that is perfectly situated for a pop ballad. Here are a few of my favorite examples:

 

Metallica - Nothing Else Matters

 

Elliott Smith - Waltz #2

 

These songs instantly shift me into the bliss of nostalgia, and in each, the charm of the meter and the melancholy of the lyrics create a compelling dichotomy. The same can be said for Britten, and before I get completely lost down this rabbit hole, here's what you're in for on the 31st:

 

Comic Cadences: Test Run - Richard Lewis

As any follower of this blog knows, this quartet likes to have a lot of projects cooking at any given point.  With our debut album recorded and mid-preparation for our disc with Julien Labro that we'll put on tape in September, it was really exciting and somewhat odd to have Chris Fisher-Lochhead come to the rehearsal studio some days ago to work on a project that won't see the concert hall until beyond this upcoming season.  I'm talking 2014-15, people!

I'm planning to document what will be a long, and detailed process of engagement with the world of standup comedy from a musical standpoint.  Chris has already been thinking about this for years (as evidenced by the repeated Richard Pryor clips I used to hear coming from his desk when we were roommates), and we're excited to endeavor with him in digging deep into the musical aspects of a fascinating and rich performance medium.

Our first session came together over this clip excerpted from a Richard Lewis appearance.  Check out the audio, and then see where Chris and my conversation begins.  I hope you'll enjoy following along as the conversation unfolds.

JAW: How did you come to decide upon this short clip from Richard Lewis to tackle first?

CFL: As a little background, I had started to transcribe the deliveries of standup comics in the spring of 2011 as a way to study the use of the human voice in performance situations.  I first transcribed 30 second clips by Paul Mooney, Richard Lewis, Woody Allen, George Carlin, Richard Pryor, Lenny Bruce, and Dave Chappelle.  The Richard Lewis clip seemed to me to be the most "musical" in a traditional sense; it had a clarity of pitch and regularity of rhythm that eased with the translation between media.

JAW: Musically speaking, how does the string quartet work for you as a medium for this concept of transcribing the cadence of standups?

CFL: In some ways, the string quartet as an ensemble is actually rather inadequate as a means to capture the various aspects of human vocal delivery.  Unlike wind and brass instruments (and of course, the human voice), string instruments do not rely on the use of breath for sound production, they do not employ the tongue for articulation, and they do not have the same possibilities for noise production that are so important for the production of linguistic meaning.  However, for my purposes, the string quartet is an excellent fit.  First of all, as a string player, I am very comfortable writing for string instruments.  Secondly, as the point of the project is to focus on those aspects of comedic delivery which are properly "musical", the choice of a medium that necessitates some form of translation can actually accentuate those aspects.

JAW: How do you feel affect of Lewis' nervous, neurotic patter effects the music you wrote to fill out the arrangement?

CFL: Although Richard Lewis' onstage persona is certainly very neurotic and nervous, it's interesting that his delivery is a lot more traditionally musical than those of the other comics I studied.  One of the things I plan to do in the future is compare the musical characteristics of a specific comic's delivery with the way that delivery articulates their onstage persona.  For example, is there some correlation between the regular rhythms and songlike pitches in Richard Lewis' routine and its nervous character?  Is there a correlation between the long pauses and monotone delivery of someone like Tig Notaro and their "dryness"?  Regardless, in transcribing the exact rhythms of human speech, the resulting rhythms will inevitably be more irregular and jagged than those of a traditionally metric music.

JAW: You said after we put together this quick recording of the Richard Lewis excerpt that you were glad we did something this early because unexpected problems came to light.  What aspects of this transcription process proved to be the most vexing?  Which aspects of the notation or approach to transcription are you currently wrangling with conceptually?

CFL: I would say that the biggest unexpected obstacles that became evident as we did this arrangement were all practical in nature: creating a tempo map and click track to exactly match the source material, creating an arrangement within the limitations of an absolutely strict click track, and synching up the live performers with the click track.

JAW: It's amazing how far this excerpt has come toward a fully expressed musical aesthetic even in this incredibly early stage of this project's development.  Check out the quartet music without Richard Lewis' voice and see for yourself:

 

Chambers is in the Can

Hark! I bring you tidings of great joy! Spektral Quartet and Parlour Tapes+ have all six pieces on Spektral's debut album on tape!

Our final session.

I'm so excited about this record, and couldn't be prouder to have recorded such challenging, intelligent and expressive music for our first disc.  Here are some things I can tell you:

-Recording Ben Hjertmann's piece on Friday and Eliza Brown's on Saturday was one of the biggest challenges this quartet has ever faced.  Both pieces are incredibly difficult individually and for the ensemble, and in drastically different ways: the wild virtuosity and rapid-fire changes of Ben's piece versus the intricately interwoven web of microtonal harmony, pulsating rhythms and subtle timbres in Eliza's work.

-The record is titled "Chambers", a nod to Marcos Balter's piece on the album, the unique sound world of each piece, and that thing the four of us do every day.

-I am a danger to my instrument...after breaking my good violin during our first collaboration with Julien Labro (that video has me playing on a second-rate loaner after I ripped the top off my fiddle with a bow whip), I've proved once again "why we can't have nice things".  Luckily, I was using my secondary violin to play the guitar-picking sections of Ben Hjertmann's piece in our session on Friday.  Check out the sound of me knocking the bridge off my instrument with a big hit behind the bridge:

Also, things get a little loopy when we're hunkering down in the studio.  Our coping mechanism seems to be extreme wackiness...thanks to Jenna Lyle for taking notes on our silliness during Friday's session:

“And THAT’s why they call him ol’ One Take Armbrust!”-Austin

“What do we want?? Time travel!! When do we want it?? That's irrelevant!!”-Aurelien

“Are there any shorter chairs? I can’t hunch over the way I like with these.” -Austin

“Bar 60 was the best we’ve ever done it that time.”-Russ
“Yeah, seriously. Speed it up, do a little pitch correction in post... It’ll be great.”-Doyle

“Why Guitar Players Have Frets: Part 800”-Austin

“Ya know, it should be more like ‘da-doo-dat-doo-dat--dat’”-Russ

“Well that was definitely tragic.”-Russ

“Ca-Kaww!”-Austin/Aurelien

“There’s the performing phase, and there’s the judging phase. And when you go too long....one takes over...How about 5. Take 5?” -Russ

Stylistic Maneuvers

I've never been the kind of musician (or music fan) who feels the need to be exclusive in my tastes.  While it may surprise some of you who are more familiar with me writing about Haas or Carter, I'm just as likely to listen to Ke$ha or Chick Corea's "My Spanish Heart" without the slightest tinge of irony.

If I spend too long playing strictly concert hall music, I get a bit itchy.  I'm certainly listening to other stuff, like my recent obsession from an amazing super-group.

That's why the the beginnings of our collaboration with Julien Labro for an album on Azica Records have brought me musical energy just when I thought I was burnt out from a long concert season.

First of all, Julien sent us a new arrangement of this scorcher a few months back to start work on:

Given the mixed meters and quicksilver solo lines, it's a good thing we've had some time to absorb the tune.

I'll be honest, I'd never heard of any of the artists on this track before Julien sent it our way.  And, it's more of the same with a few other composers and tunes on the record.  That includes the thorny hubbub of Fernando Otero's "De Ahora en Màs" and a couple tunes by the incredibly talented Diego Schissi, whose adventures in nuevo tango have a flavor of Stravinsky.

It's not like I've never listened to Latin jazz before, but diving into the styles and listening with actually playing these different moods and grooves in mind has been an adventure in uncovering some really special musical personalities.

Our first shows with the new material are on Tuesday at the Clark Street location of Uncommon Ground and on the Pittsburgh Chamber Music Society the following day.  Look for more shows this fall, and the album later in the concert season!

But, it's not our first time playing together and we'll be bringing back some familiar arrangements from familiar names: