queries

See the music, hear the dance

“See the music, hear the dance,” says Balanchine. This is important.

I took a choreography course as an elective in grad school. It was not a wholly successful venture, as we performed our own works and I am not always entirely at home with being Under Scrutiny, but I do think I improved my skills.

We always talked through our pieces, about what was working and what wasn’t, and the professor gave some insight into her own struggles. One such issue was her sometimes frustration with finding a piece of music she desperately wanted to choreograph but being unable to see her way to any steps. A student had set her final dance to such a score – a piano piece by Debussy – and the professor expressed her admiration at the student’s ability to pick up on layers on the music to fuel her steps. “Those are layers I never would have noticed as right to highlight.”

The best dances are those that do not exist outside their music. The dull ones – you know the ones I mean, I’m sure – have choreography that may impress with tricks and spins but have little or no relation to the music being played in the background. It’s just a beat, or a collection of lyrics meant to do all the work of explaining the purpose of the dance so that the dancer and choreographer don’t have to bother with it (there are rare exceptions to this).

On the flip side, to go back to Balanchine, he didn’t want to choreograph to Beethoven because he felt Beethoven’s music needed no further augmentation. Similarly, there are dances that are created without music at all.

If they want to play, music and dance must do more than play nice with each other. They must complement each other, and find the new layers.

Thoughts?

For more on this, you might be interested in my interview with Shannon Schwait of CityDance.

Here is a list of my demands

I don’t work in the hospitality department at the music center, but I’m just a few cubicles over from the people who do, plus we share a refrigerator.

Sometimes I open said refrigerator and see impressive-looking foodstuffs labeled with an emphatic “DO NOT EAT.” Right now there is a fruit pie bearing these very words. This means that the food is intended for a visiting performer.

I hear some interesting stories about the requirements built into artists’ contracts, not just in the area of food but also the layout of the green room and the behavior of the audience. I’m going to be super-lame here and not name any names in the interest of not getting in trouble with The Man, but here are some anecdotes:

• One pop star stipulated that the green room must be stocked with multiple specific types of alcohol, including some very expensive bottles of wine. She mostly didn’t drink it.
• A combination actor-singer consented to a meet-and-greet before his concert, but he refused to take photos with individuals — groups only — and made one girl change her homemade fan shirt as it was dubbed a bit too amorous (okay, fair enough).
• I’ve heard about quite a few performers who absolutely refused to allow anyone to enter the hall once the concert had started; anyone who was late would have to wait until intermission to take their seats.
• Other requested items: black and white pillows, halogen desk lamps, a “comfortable” space (er, yes, but in what regard? No further details provided)

I may sound a little snarky, but it’s mostly just salt — no one ever asks me what kind of baked good I want when I arrive in a new town; of course, the only thing standing between me and acres of bread pudding is a dearth of talent and charisma. But it also makes me giggle, because somewhere out there is a musician who receives a fruit pie everywhere he goes.

All right, professional musicians and performers of all stripes, I know you’re out there in my sea of readership. Give me the list of your demands! And how about those who cater to the whims of others — what are the most ridiculous requests you’ve fielded?

Where you sit and where you stand

Hey, remember high school orchestra chair auditions? That gladiatorial arena that pitted instrument against instrument in a clawing, biting scramble to score a seat two feet closer to the conductor, the same person you were auditioning for and who you’d known for up to four years, thus stripping away that cool and steadying wall of anonymity that might have otherwise supported you?

Right, so I was in one of those, my sophomore year (a trying year for me, orchestrally, but we can talk about that later), and I was visibly nervous, because that’s what happened to me during auditions: a neon light flashed above my head like a raincloud in a cartoon or a prism above a Sim, and the sign read NERVOUS. And O’Bryan, the conductor, told me to chill out. “Be like Elizabeth,” he said, referring to the first chair violist. “When she makes a mistake, she just says ‘Sorry!’ and keeps right on plugging, totally cool.”

Well, folks, Elizabeth happens to be one of my best friends, so I was able to ask her about this admirable attitude recently. “The only reason I was like that,” she told me, “was because I knew there was no possible way I could be demoted.”

It’s true. Elizabeth was a solid violist backed by a troupe of shaky violists. If she had been removed from her post the whole structure would’ve collapsed in the ensuing violaquake.

I just want to ask you guys about the orchestra (and by implication, band) culture, here. Concertmaster and assistant concertmaster and first chair are all prestigious titles to be sure, and it’s good that musicians have a seat to aspire to. But how much emphasis do you place on them? And beyond that, how much emphasis do you place on every chair after?

In all the school orchestras I ever participated in, your chair was permanent and a de facto indication of where you stood in your section. Anybody ahead of you was better than you, definitively, and if you had to move up you had to challenge your better with a face-off re-audition.

In professional orchestras, however, I understand that aside from the first two chairs, everybody rotates, the idea being that anyone who’s made it in is darn good and a place closer to the sun, as it were, should be afforded to everyone.

Of course, in many schools, music isn’t auditioned, so the logic is flawed. But do you think the rotational system could work in a school orchestra setting? What impact do you think it would have on the ambiance? Or is that cuttthroat culture all in my head?

The Best

Two weeks ago I made a list of composers I considered to be the greatest, in terms of talent, innovation, and output. I tried to make this as objective as possible while still noting that my own preferences and the limits of my knowledge base must unavoidably come into play.

This week? IT’S SUBJECTIVE TIME. Which, indeed, is kind of like Miller Time — alcohol free, yes, but with just as much opportunity to shout your opinions while gesticulating wildly and possibly falling out of your chair.

All of this is just to say that here I would like to present my list not of the greatest composers of all time but the ones I like BEST. Basically the idea here is a collection of the composers that, when the radio deejay says, “next is a piece by ________”, make me say “YAY!!!” Here goes:

1. BEETHOVEN (duh)
2. Bach
3. Khachaturian (and I stand by my decision)
4. Stravinsky
5. Schubert
6. Holst
7. Prokofiev
8. Shostakovich
9. Ravel
10. Tchaikovsky

There is of course a fair amount of overlap, but I bet some of them surprise you. Before you pull out your extra-sharp pitchfork, rest assured — I’m not suggesting Khachaturian ranks above Stravinsky in… well, in ANY category, really. Stravinsky is definitely the better composer. But Khachaturian makes me super happy! So high up the list he stays. Ya get me?

The nice thing about this list is, it’s even more changeable than a best-of list, undulating and evolving with your changing moods and interests; I expect Handel could sneak on to mine any moment now.

Now about you — who are you feeling right now?

The Greatest

Note: By the end of this post I will ask you to create your own list of the top ten composers. I’m ruining the ending for you because I think it might be neat if you do it now, before you’re corrupted by my list or the NYT list or your grocery list or what have you. Just a thought. Thank you; good morning!

Hey, remember how I said the lynchpin of the Composer Cagematch! is not who you feel is the better composer but rather who you love more? Well, put a pin in it. We’re playing a new game now.

A couple weeks ago while at my grandmother’s house my family got into a discussion about who the greatest composers of all time were — greatest, not our favorites. (Yeah, my family has random chats about classical composers — just wait until I tell you about the great Dvorak’s Origins Argument of Thanksgiving 2011. That one still resurfaces from time to time.) My mom pulled up a list from The New York Times music critic to get his top 10. Take a gander here.

His list began with the traditional top three but then had me ducking a few curveballs — Brahms? Really? Then he said in his article he would expect such skepticism — and it got me thinking as to what MY top ten would be. Naturally I don’t mean to say I’m a completely impartial judge (I’d say the immediately preceding sentence already knocked me out of contention for that title), but in making such a list I think one would have to look at quality over blind adoration. You’ll see what I mean.*

So… for now, here’s my top ten. I betcha my list could change as early as tomorrow, but in this moment, here are what I call The Greatest:

1. Bach
2. Beethoven
3. Mozart
4. Stravinsky
5. Schubert
6. Bartok
7. Shostakovich
8. Handel
9. Haydn
10. Prokofiev

What I find most interesting about this exercise is less about who made it but who didn’t — or rather, which sorts of composers didn’t. I didn’t name a single composer outside the Austro-Hungarian or Soviet area; nary an opera composer to be found. This is the hole in my classical understanding; this teaches me where I need to go next to expand my repertoire — and maybe revise my list once I have.

Well? How do you feel about my list? I expect some fightin’ words as opinions must always create. And what about you? For bonus points, how has your list evolved? If I can remember, I want to make this list up again next year and see if it’s changed. Someone remind me in 11.5 months, okay?

* Do you SEE that? Do you SEE how I put Mozart at number 3, even though he makes me want to sic a fictionalized Salieri on him? He’s there because he was a genius, and even if I don’t dig most of his works, I can recognize that. Incidentally, this is also how I feel about Faulkner.

The pits

As I mentioned yesterday, I spent my Saturday in New York City with some fellow ballerinas. We did the requisite NYC wandering, but our main objective was to see the New York City Ballet perform a series of short works, including The Steadfast Tin Soldier (which I didn’t like because NO ONE MELTED), Le Tombeau de Couperin (which I loved, at least in part because RAVEL!), a Tchaikovsky pas de deux (more on that Friday, kinda), and The Concert (hilarious at the beginning, WTF at the end).

But this is not a post about ballet. This is a post about the pit.

The New York City Ballet performs with a pit orchestra, an increasingly rare luxury in these hard economic times. I’ve never played in a pit, myself, but I can only imagine it’s a very different experience from playing in a regular concert — and not just because no one can see you. Even if your work has been recorded to CD, when someone plays that CD it’s all about you and your music. In the pit, you become secondary, do you not? Important, yes, but not the focus. The conductor doesn’t even get to fully control the nuances of the piece, constantly adjusting to suit the dancers/actors/what have you.

I thought of this particularly because of the Tchaikovsky, the lost pas de deux from Swan Lake. It featured a violin solo, and I wondered — what’s it like soloing in the pit? Of course you still don’t want to make a mistake, but the eyes aren’t on you; hell, most of the audience can’t even see you. Are you still nervous? Do you play it your way, or are you more inclined to play traditionally, to keep things consistent for the dancer? Does it even matter if you snag a solo or not?

And conductors, how do you feel answering to dancers? Does it add an extra layer of difficulty, dividing your attention between the musicians and the performers on stage? Have you ever had a dancer ask for a truly ridiculous adjustment? Have the music and the dancing ever separated, and if so, how did you get it back? Did you get it back?

In short, does playing in the pit take the pressure off, or is it the pit of despair?*

* Don’t even think about trying to escape.

Aliens are better at arias

Of course, we knew that.

In Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novel Maskerade, Agnes Nitt auditions for the Ankh-Morpork opera company and shows off a range spanning from the lowest to the highest octave. The evaluation committee asks her if that’s her full range. No, she says, but if I go any higher I break things, and if I go any lower people get uncomfortable.

Let’s imagine, for a moment, that human voices had no rhythmic or tonal limits. How do you think opera would change? Often the singer indicates the part — the soprano plays the ingenue, for example, and the tenor the hero. But now anyone can sing any part; hell, the soprano can sing the tenor’s part if she wants.

And another thought — how often do you think a composer thinks, I know what I want to do with the voice; how often do you think he thinks, I know what I want to do with the voice but it simply cannot be done?

Oh, and! Techno opera! Someone should get on this.

Where did this post start, again? Right, aliens.

Tchaikovsky, the third grade, and me

I had Mr. Wong for third and fourth grade art. I loved his class; he gave us all sorts of fun assignments and on one memorable occasion a party with soda (I don’t remember why we had the party, but I remember we had soda).

I’m not entirely sure the why of this — I think it was that time we made a self-portrait trading card type thing, and we were making “stats” for the back — but at one point our art assignment was accompanied by a survey of sorts, asking for items like favorite color, favorite food, etc.

One of the categories was “favorite musician or band.” Third grade me labored over this one a bit, decided to take some creative license, and wrote down “Tchaikovsky.” Musician, band, composer — practically reads like a thesaurus, no?

All the kids in the class went up one at a time to read our answers (a popular trope, the getting up and reading in front of the class; I think now this is less about education and more about teachers killing time). When I got to Tchaikovsky, Mr. Wong didn’t challenge me. He just raised his eyebrows and said, “Interesting.”

Maybe he was a Tchaikovsky snob? Maybe he was surprised that a third grader could spell “Tchaikovsky”? But I ponder now not his reaction but my answer to his question. It seems that in third grade, I thought Tchaikovsky was the bee’s knees.

And I still think Tchaikovsky is the bee’s knees, just not the queen bee. For awhile there I was desperately, hopelessly in love with Schubert’s “Death and the Maiden” string quartet. Now I think the adagio cantabile from Beethoven’s Pathetique piano sonata might be my favorite. For now.

My point is: tastes change. Obviously. Now cast your mind back to third grade you. Who was your favorite?

Turn the tide of blog posts!

Ah, yes. Fall is here. School starts, the weather gets nippy — it’s awful, isn’t it?

Good thing the BSO season gets rolling too, or we’d have nothing to lift our desolation. This week cellist Alisa Weilerstein joins Marin Alsop in her rightful place on the conductor’s podium in a program entitled “Tchaikovsky and Dvorak.” A little prosaic, but certainly descriptive — the program features Dvorak’s cello concerto and Tchaikovsky’s “Pathetique” symphony. Oh, and this: “Baltimore-based James Lee III’s Chuphshah! Harriet’s Drive to Canaan depicts Harriet Tubman’s yearning for emancipation, drawing on Negro Spirituals to express her journey from slavery to freedom.” Interesting! See it at the Meyerhoff on Friday, September 23 at 8 pm, at Strathmore on Thursday, September 24 at 8 pm, and then again at the Meyerhoff on Sunday, September 25 at 3 pm.

Okay, I’m rushing through this one a bit ’cause I have a question for you about these upcoming BSO concert posts. I’ve been doing them for almost two years now, and when I was an intern there it tied in perfectly and played right into my blog thesis project. Now that the scope has widened a bit, I want to know — do you like them? Do you read them? Do they interest you, even if you’re in no position to go? Tell me please!

Musicians should be heard but not seen?

My ninth-grade social studies teacher was named Mrs. Schoppert, and she was pretty awesome in a sassy kind of way. As great teachers often do, she peppered her lectures with stories, often personal, and this brief vignette has stuck with me.

Mrs. Schoppert’s two siblings are artists, and when they were little, their artwork covered the walls of her father’s office. Mrs. Schoppert herself had no drawing talent; she was a singer. A very good singer. When she had recitals and such, her family was proud of her. But it rankled her that nothing of hers was displayed on a refrigerator.

So one day, she grabbed an index card and a purple marker, and she wrote “Ericka Schoppert, age 13 — I SING!” in giant letters on the card, and she marched into her father’s office and pinned it to the wall. And she was represented.

Some might consider this story and be moved to ponder the transient nature of performance, how live music is a creature entirely of the now. Some are pretentiously philosophical, aren’t they? What I want to know is this: as a musician, you can’t exactly put your talent in a frame or bind it in a book. How do you wish to be recognized?