Short comment on politics and academia

In Edward Said's Orientalism, p.10
"To some extent the political importance given a field comes from the possibility of its direct translation into economic terms; but to a greater extent political importance comes from the closeness of a field to ascertainable sources of power in political society."
Whereas Said's talking about the Cold War, what if I translate "political society" as the musicological institution, which I am entering? What should my thesis topic be about?

(yes, I know I should "be myself"... yes, I know...)

Book Review: Strunk's Source Reading for Music History Vol 1 "Greek Views of Music"

Finally, I have taken action to write this review, which will be of great benefit to my learning and assimilation of knowledge. This review is more a summary than a criticism (the review I did for Musical Childhood is a criticism, if you are interested in that.)

For those who are not familiar with what Strunk's Source Reading of Music History is, this is a book that compiles excerpts or totalities of original documents or their translations. The first edition is a bulky 919-page compendium of essays from "the classical antiquity to the romantic era", published in 1950. Oliver Strunk, himself an expert on music in the middle ages, took great shouldering in creating "a history of music faithfully and entirely carved from contemporary accounts". The current edition I am reading is published in 1998. Split into seven volumes, each is edited by a veteran musicologist who specializes in each era. The seven volumes are titled:
Greek Views of Music, The Early Christian Period and the Latin Middle Ages, The Renaissance, The Baroque Era, The Late Eighteenth Century, The Nineteenth Century, and the Twentieth Century. The latter, of course, was untackled by Strunk, and this void is only to be fulfilled by a younger generation (old, of course, as compared to me or my teachers). The general editor, Leo Treitler, is installed to ensure a coherent tone in the seven volumes (achieved in the first edition by Strunk since he was to the only person compiling the writings). Articles from these source readings are frequently assigned in music history classes, including mine at the Chinese University and Eastman School of Music.

I aimed to finish reading all seven volumes in the summer, prior to the commencement of my PhD program in University of California, San Diego (UCSD). I believe that, although I will be specializing in a certain kind of music, or period of musical-philosophical-critical style, a solid general foundation of music history based on primary sources is essential for a "real" doctor in music - a person of vast knowledge, and a person who would not embarrass himself due to his lack of knowledge, which is always the case. Starting from volume 1, it is as though I am revising for the undergrad History I course.

As the foreword bespeaks, this volume is not about "The Greek View of Music", but Greek Views of Music. Greek views, according to my assimilation of the book, consist of the theoretical and the expressive. This is a reflection of their understanding of music, a union of science and beauty.

The first writings, by Plato, however, embarks on the role of education of music. Plato did not went into technical details on how to tune in different modes (a word that I will further explain). He emphasizes that the Dorian and Phrygian are to be used to arouse warriors' morale, while youngsters should learn another mode (which I forgot which one it is). Other treatises expounds on the power of music to sooth or iritate the soul. Depending on the musical mode and the instrumentation, siginicantly different effects would result.

The Greek terminology is different from ours. For example, their modes seems to differ from our understand of modes, which are established by the Church during the 14th century (that's arguably the earliest time we can say. It's also plausible to say 16th C.) They have similar names: Dorian, Lydian, Mixolydian, etc. But the Greek ones are based on tetrachords (scales that consist of four notes) and often include quarter-tones (diesis in Greek). The modes that we know (including the major and minor modes) consists of seven notes and no quarter tones, but only semitones and tones, are involved.

There are a few vocabs that reflect key Greek thoughts: (will add in the explanations this week...)
melos
harmony
consonant and dissonant
intervals
ethos

Why read the Greek? Because people at all times look back to them as the source of civilization, i.e. people to quote and quotes to justify their innovation. A musical example: Plato said "the harmonia and the rhythm must follow the text"; in the 16th/17th century, Monteverdi, while promoting his seconda practtica, justifies his standpoint quoting Plato. (p. 10) The skepticism of Sextus Empiricus also has its remote descendents from the Middle Ages on. Outside of the musical context and the context of this book, Nietzsche's philosophy is based on his reading of the Greek mythologies, and suggest new ways of seeing the world. (Actually, all continental philosophers love/ take advantage of the Greeks.) In an academic point of view, the Greeks is the beginning of the story of western music, and being able to trace back to it is great joy. In a purely personal perspective, I find the Greek's sensitivity fascinating. Their souls are touched by different modes, and touched by good and bad music playing. Hence Spartans are different from Athens. They also correlate music with the planets and cosmos. It's not considered rational in our world today, but in some imaginative ways, doesn't it make sense? They are just enunciating today's unspeakable.

(The evolution of listening is also wondrous. Greeks: quarter tones are their everyday lunch and dinner. But they wanna get them right and pleasant. Music affects their morality. Middle ages: plainchants, but still, sing well please. Renaissance: Michelangelo Rossi's Settima Toccata explains it! Baroque: J. S. Bach's writing P&F to show different colors of the different keys which give different affects. Coming to the end of the Romantic period: Equal temperament. Maximalism strikes the general audience more than anything. 20th century and beyond: let's put it this way... the sensitivity is different. Less auratic, in the Adornian, nostalgic sense.)

The theoretical part of Greek music is an important foundation to music but I personally find them less interesting. It consists of the Pythagorean calculation of pitch (how to divide a vibrating cord to produce different intervals), the naming of different modes (in tedious names), and different signs/ symbols for ntoes and modes. Seimologists may be very excited to look at them!

Funny moments: professional musicians (aulo-ists) are dirty people... and the great Socrates learn music when he's old (so music teachers, you know what to say if an adult wants to learn music!)

The first few measures of Mozart's Sonata in C minor, K. 457

I was taught, when I was little, that Mozart ought to be elegant. Always.

This turn out to be a beautiful misunderstanding. Look at this:

The powerful and almost disturbing (in the Classical sense) Sonata in C minor, one of only two piano sonatas in the minor mode by mozart, starts with an upward octave gesture in forte. Angry, solemn, masculine, or in some musical jargons, the Ratnerian topic of military/ horn call, or the Mannheim rocket. Measures 3 and 4 answers with piano. being sorrowful, docile, feminine, or an Nietzschean Angst, if you will. The first four bars constitutes what we call the antecedent phrase (the first in a question-answer pair), and the following four the consequent.

Here's how I heard it played by a person of undisclosed name a few days ago, and also an ex-colleague a few months ago, as well as in the first video search result on Youtube when I typed "Mozart Sonata in C minor":

As if it is a plague, numerous people apply the pedal at the second beat of the second bar, prolonging the E-flat until momentarily before the next E-flat played by the right hand.

They also apply a diminuendo from bar 3 to four, partly, rendering the antecedent and consequent phrases totally symmetrical.

There are a few rebuttals for the above interpretation. What Malcolm Bilson preached in his DVD Knowing the Score would forbidden us from applying the pedal at measure two, and I concur totally. Firstly, applying the pedal shortens the silence after the note. The drama of silence conveyed by the rests is one of the things I am looking for. The upward thrust ends "untimely" at E-flat, as if it should have gone up infinitely. The abrupt stop causes silence and question, and the rhetoric continues by picking up the high E-flat as a start of the feminine gesture. Applying the pedal creates what I call a plateau at E-flat, and it may sound like a legitimate emotional linkage between the agitated octaves and the languous melody afterward. This plays with elegance (which is not the character of this passage) and buries musical surprise.

The dampers of the modern steel piano truncates sounds very well, but in a good concert hall or practice room, the resonance during the rest is still evident. In Mozart's piano, the dampers are less efficient, and the resonance constitute part of the musical excitement. I believe this intention is naturally translated well from a Mozartean piano to a Steinway or Yamaha.

Now, take a look at the harmonies:

Measure three to four suggest, harmonically, a crescendo, as the diminished chord at measure 4 is more dissonant than the first inversion tonic chord at measure 3. it makes no sense to play measure 3 louder, and let the music "resolve" to measure 4. The resolution is non-existent. I certainly admire the slight imbalance between the antecedent and consequent phrases more than a dogmatic balanced elegance within the eight bars. This decision based on harmony is very suitable on a fortepiano. But does it translate well on a modern piano? Not necessarily. Therefore, I would do the following:

As a pianist with some talent but far from a natural player, I think about music often with great complexities, however aim at having it sound simple and natural. My markings may look complicated, but I think you will understand my intentions.

Interestingly, this sonata was written before most, if not all Beethoven compositions. There is, however, the vigor that is often associated with Beethoven. Also notice the orchestral effect imitated on the piano (tutti/ strings for mm. 1-2, woodwinds for mm. 3-4). Although he wrote the most elegant and tuneful melodies in the history of music, Mozart is neither a transcendental being who only writes angelic music, nor is all his music suitable for shopping malls or the Mozart Effect compilation.

Good speakers for good music

I am particularly happy that I purchased my new iMac a week ago. With a better speaker, I come to sit down and appreciate music much more. Seriously! As a music major, I've been suffering from poor speakers since... I listened to music! I am not a fan of headphones and did not invest in a proper one. My HP personal computer does not give good effects. The iMac does not have a spectacular speaker, but it's enough to distract me from my readings when it plays youtube music. Nuances... ahh... yea...

Book Review: Musical Childhoods & the Cultures of Youth

Book Review: Musical Childhoods & the Cultures of Youth
edited by Susan Boynton and Roe-Min Kok
Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2006

Parts read: Preface, Ch. 4 to Ch. 9, and Afterword
Parts skimmed: Ch. 1 to Ch. 3 and Ch. 10
See content page here.

This book review does not intend to be in the style of a formal review as in academic journals. It is, instead, an exploration of ideas, a field for ideas to sort and sediment, and a place to pose questions. For a formal review, see Barry Cooper's essay on Music and Letters.

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I was initially attracted to this book by Ch. 5, Roe-Min Kok's Music for a Postcolonial Child: Theorizing Malaysian Memories. As a western music learner from Hong Kong, I struggle to give a statement - not even a provisional one - about my culture identity, and how I appropriate my views of nation and culture, views that seems to come directly from my mind than by reason. (Resemblances of Bourdieu's habitus?) This book serves as a great introduction to topics in children studies. My greatest gain after reading is the heightened awareness of the mediated nature of discourse, especially one between children and adults.

Ch. 5 and Ch. 6 most explicitly grapple with the matter of the mediated nature of discourse. Roe-Min Kok's essay is a deconstruction of her identity as a Malaysian professor of western music in Canada, and then a reconstruction of various powers around her youth that makes her the person she is. In her words, she "theorizes from [her] personal loci" and attempts to "foreground and interrogate forces that have shaped [her] identity in order to facilitate reconciliation of the fragments created by the dominant discourse of [her] early music education." (90) This is an autobiography of her youth, however not one that only recounts her indelible memories of youth, but goes beyond and questions her post-colonial experience. That includes the western music education she received on an eastern soil, and the ABRSM music exams she endured. She put her story as a post-colonial discourse, and ascribes her post-childhood character to values planted by the British colonization of Malaysia. In Ch. 6, Patricia Tang succinctly points out that Senegalese griots attempt to shape their identity through the construction of their childhood stories in front of western scholars. Both essays seem to suggest the death of the fatal "A-word" authenticity, not to discredit the informant, but to acknowledge that discourses are always mediated, and to investigate the mediation would be a fruitful process in what we call critical studies.

Ch. 8 and Ch. 9 testify that some pieces of music do not bear the same effects as their composers intend them to. Ch. 8 reports on the living Germans' memories of political-imbued folk songs of the 50s. Ch. 9 comes to the conclusion that some music education policies in Meiji era spread mostly western musical ideas, despite having an aim to evoke Japanese-ness through music.

All four essays above started from the viewpoint of the adult. In other words, the adult analyses their childhood and provides a discourse. Ch. 5 and ch. 10, interestingly, try to invert the balance. They attempt to analyze from a childhood perspective. Steven Heubner used Piaget's childhood development paradigm to analyze the plot and music of Ravel's L'Enfant et les sortilege. His ingenious imagination connects childhood behavior with modernist aesthetics, something, This relevant and eccentric point of view justifies the opera's presence in the early 20th century. (Of course, the childhood paradigm is invented by an adult, but my point is that the author theorizes as if he/she is a child.) Ch. 10 describes a phenomenon in a Jewish summer camp that an invented ritual-musical practice of the youth shapes their future modes of devotion.

While this book gives a satisfying experience across different cultures, I find Ch. 7 an absurd change of perspective of the book. The author highlights the connection between the three informants - how genius female P'ansori performs come of age - very much her rationale in selecting them. She gives a lot of background information on how their lives are shaped by society, but does not seem to be interested in the discourse of the informants. The informants provide the story, and the author treats it, at most times, as a transparent and True story - quite a different approach from the rest of the essays.

Personally, Ch. 5 remains the most provocative essay. I do not totally agree on Roe-min Kok's post-colonial stance. I was tempted to say that Kok's discourse put the colonized as the victimized, but she doesn't intend to do that. She stopped at interrogating the forces that shaped her youth. In theorizing my coming-of-age, which is one of my goals, I would go further in the critical analysis, and give an answer - a bold albeit imperfect one - to my mission as a product of those powers that shaped me. I am a power, after all.

Vocabs memorization

One of the greatest challenges of a musicologist with English as a second language is that his/her vocabs need to be built. As for me, the relatively small library of vocab makes me check the dictionary often. I'm not satisfied with my current efficiency in digesting academic materials. (Neither am I satisfied with my analytical skills, but that's off topic for here.) I'm reading 60-100 pages of academic materials now on average, and that's the summer capacity. I'm sure that the semester will push me forward and I'll be stressed but delighted at the same time.

Moreover, it confines the prose that is used in academic writing. Without JUST THE RIGHT WORD (which I often struggle to find), writings could sound stale. Sometimes the word is ThErE... but it's just out of reach and I couldn't remember the word that is lost somewhere in my mind.

When I was in primary 5, I wrote down all memorable Chinese phrases that I encounter in the literature I read. Many of whom involves old-Chinese, 4-word idioms, well-balanced phrases and delightful metaphors. My Chinese writing flourished for a few years, and eventually wilted in the 3rd year of middle school, since I stopped the practise (apparently for no reason. Laziness is a retrospective conclusion.)

A few years ago, I started writing down English vocabs onto separate sheets, in the attempt to extended my dystrophic vocab library (in a scholarly standard). No result: the sheets are just hanging there. A few months ago, when I need to study for the GRE, I used sheets as well as flash cards. But still, my library expands in a really slow rate. I still keep the habit of writing down vocabs in separate sheets, and by now, many vocabs I wrote down recently have been encountered before, but I just don't remember them. From today on, I'll try to post these vocabs onto the blog.

Please give me some tips on memorizing vocabs!

The Effective Diminuendo

I was practising Franck's Prelude, Chorale and Fugue today, but the most joyful moment comes at the postlude of the practising, Elgar's Salut d'amour (Greetings of Love).

(Here's a link to a violin and piano version of Salut d'amour. I was playing the solo version.)

  

At the third bar of the third stave, there's an effective diminuendo. (The crescendo before that was three-bar in length.)

When I was practising by memory, I extended the diminuendo through the third to fifth bar of the third stave. It still sounded nice, but the gist is lost. (the piano and dolce are also eliminated.)

In this case, play what the score says, please!

Try it on the piano, or try it in your mind, and you'll know what I mean.

That's why, students (and even teachers) should always practise with the score on the stand, at least on top of the piano for reference anytime.

Try it the wrong way, then try it the right way... it's magical.