Here is the side view of everything.  My desk, my keyboard, my music stand (currently holding a hymn book which I’m using to practice sightreading), the bookshelf, and Lindsey’s desk.  And look at that cheap, commercial grade rug!

Closer view of my setup, complete with corkboard and whiteboard.  I imagine these will become cluttered with notes, outlines, and other stuff in the very near future.

And finally, the view from my window.

And just so we’re clear…this is FAR BETTER than a pit of lions, as you can see:

Excerpts from In Time – Ithaca College Wind Ensemble by Alex Yoder

What is particularly striking, for me, is how his ideas translate through time and place.  It is easy to see why Gann compares his influence to Monteverdi and Stravinsky.  Here is a performance of 4’33″ by a full orchestra.  Again, the idea is critical, and the point comes across just as well as it would with a solo pianist.

An interesting point that Gann returns to several times is the idea that Cage’s music is not only unique, but characterstically American.  It begs the question of whether or not Cage would have reached his prolific status had he been born in England or somewhere else.  There has always been a cadre of American classical musicians that have been quite comfortable with ideas that stand in opposition to the classical European art tradition.  So it stands to reason that his rise to fame and subsequent influence on the musical world were made possible by being an inventive American.  His famous study with Schoenberg is a testament to this opposition.

Cage and his contemporaries could be seen as something of a “foil” to the cold, though consistent, Milton Babbit.  Cage wants his music to be evocative.  It doesn’t “want” to exist inside a vacuum as Babbit’s would (according to his own philosophy).  And yet, for all their differences, one could argue that neither Babbit nor Cage really cared if audiences found their work good or bad.  After all, both men were concerned with ideas.

This led me to wonder…did Partch really keep 43 pitches in his head?  Or did he use some sort of approximation based on scales he had already studied, such as the Western 12 note scale?  If we look at the scale Gann gives us in Chapter 4, we can see that each of the normal diatonic pitches is included, listed as follows:

• half-tone (close to an equal temp. half-step)
• major/minor whole tone (close to an equal temp. whole step)
• the rest are listed as normal (i.e. major 3rd, perfect 4th, etc.) however they are tuned according to just intonation

Also keep in mind that, as Gann explains, this scale was based on G as the tonic.  So the “just intonation” intervals are consonant only in that respect, however, with 43 divisions of the octave you have a greater chance of being “close” to a consonance that wouldn’t otherwise exist in equal temperament.  At any rate, it is hard to say whether or not Partch used equal temperament as a tool to help him hear his own scale; perhaps he could hear 43 distinct pitches as Gann suggests. You can hear some of this scale on his adapted reed organ in this BBC video, around 4:25

I’m not sure if this recording of the “eight hitchhiker inscriptions from a highway railing at Barstow” was recorded by Partch or John Schneider, as the video has two conflicting descriptions, one in the comments and one in the actual video description.

Either way, you can hear the entire recording.  Two things struck me about the performance.  First, even with the experimental sounds he uses the music is fairly approachable, given the subject matter, use of spoken word, and easy to digest melody.  He returns to the same chord every time he moves to a new “inscription” as he announces the number which lends a very recognizable structure.

View of the city from our 31st story room in the Sheraton.

Navy Pier was dark and scary once you passed the entrance.

“The Japan Tubists”, from the Japan Army (euphonium and tuba players).  They were scrumtrulescent.  There was standing room for the extra 50 to 60 people that couldn’t find seats…like me.

And finally, drinks at the infamous Hilton Towers bar.  John Mackey and the Boston Brass were hanging out here but I couldn’t get a picture of them…as they were often thronged by crowds.

Attending a band concert … I find exhilarating. For starters, the repertoire of band music is largely contemporary. As a result the audiences expect and look forward to new works. Listening in an environment largely ignored by the press, they learn to trust their own ears and respond directly to what they hear. Most important of all, concert bands devote large amounts of rehearsal time over a period of weeks – not days – to learning thoroughly the most challenging of scores. With its combination of new notations and spatial challenges demanding an intricate coordination of a large work, Circus Maximus could only have been attempted under such special circumstances.

 

The most thought provoking part of that for me is the line “Listening in an environment largely ignored by the press, they learn to trust their own ears and respond directly to what they hear”.  I think this tends to be true.  Almost every new orchestra work that gets commissioned and premiered will have several reviews written about it, and orchestra enthusiasts are very keen to those sort of things.  On the other hand, band pieces rarely get reviewed unless its a big performance by a big composer, so the audience would not have any preconceived notions about the quality or character of the piece.  They listen to the music for what it is, not what someone else says it is.  Of course, an educated, open minded musician will be able to do this regardless of the venue, but I think its interesting that a big name composer like Corigliano, who writes primarily for the orchestral world, would have such a keen understanding of band audiences.