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Breaking Through the Mold of an Ivy League Music Department by Mike Marlin

Sturgeon's Log -- CD reviews by Christopher DeLaurenti

Mastering: Intent, Art and Commerce by Alex Keller

Noise-Lovin' Ned by Ffej

Catch and Release

Shuddering at Shutters -- A Tentacle Polemic, by Mike Marlin

More articles to come soon.

Notation and New Music in Seattle -- A Talk with Art Bloom

From premiering hundreds of works as clarinetist and conductor to engraving scores by many American composers including Elliott Carter, Joël Durand, Ken Benshoof, and John Corigliano, Art Bloom has enjoyed a multifarious career in contemporary music. He spent several years as director of the New York State Arts Council Music Division and for the last 25 years has served composers as an autographer and computer- engraver, transforming composers' handwritten notation into scores and parts ready for publication and performance. He also appears on more than 75 recordings of contemporary music. We aboard the Tentacle were delighted when he agreed to answer some questions about music notation and offer his view of new music in Seattle.

Music notation is the craft of writing graphically to describe the movement of sounds in time. When edited, it can also describe in graphic terms the quality and loudness of the sounds. The reason to write music in this manner is to show performers the musical intentions of the composer. A musical composition is usually created by one composer, but his piece may be performed by one player to hundreds of singers and instrumentalists. Thus, notation evolved to permit performances to happen.

There have been three major changes in notation. The Greeks spoke their dramas often accompanied by single lines of sound and probably quasi-sang their speeches since they believed music added more emotional effect than when the drama was performed only with speech. The first major change occurred in Europe around 900 as modal music slowly shifted from monody to polyphony. Pitch was then written on a five-line staff, and durational notation was invented to show how long notes should sound. An array of musical instruments were invented, and, as they became sophisticated enough to maintain a uniform tuning of pitches, players developed performing techniques that were faster in tempo than music written only for the voice. Composers playing keyboard instruments gradually developed a theory of musical tonality (key centers instead of modal scales), and contrapuntal forms were expanded. Polyphony increased in complexity and was challenged by the development of vertical sounds: chords and chordal progressions. By 1600 chordal harmony was challenging the linear elements.

This new music, with its harmonic functions, necessitated a departure in notation from single staff part-books to score notation where all the parts were on the page. This enabled one to read and hear not only the linear aspects of a piece but also the vertical (harmonic) elements. Notation of scores soon became a more sophisticated language for the composer and led to larger musical forces. The conductor supplanted the leader (concertmaster) and the keyboard player, and operas were created as well as varieties of chamber music and symphonic forms.

The third stylistic upheaval began in the 1950s and led in two directions. One was an unprecedented increase in precision of every musical component. Composers such as Babbitt, Boulez, Stockhausen, and Martino placed particular emphasis on such elements as dynamics, timbre, pitch inflections, and increased performance demands. Rhythmically complex measurement brought irrational numbers to many-voiced compositions, and new symbols and procedures were devised to cope with the problems traditional notation could not fulfill.

The other trend rejected precision. Instead, it introduced deliberate ambiguity, varying degrees of indeterminacy and improvisation, and unpredictable sounds. All these elements required new notation, even to the abandonment of conventional symbols. The finest resource describing present-day music writing is Music Notation in the Twentieth Century, by Kurt Stone, published by Norton in 1980. "Serious" music is problematic for performers as well as composers, but "Musical notation, after all, is not an ideal method of communication, utilizing, as it does, visual devices to express aural concepts. But it is all we have." (Kurt Stone)

Music of the past normally included repetition of phrases, motifs, and even entire sections. Notation has evolved to include the possibilities of mensural diminution, augmentation, and variation of existing material, so that the listener hears and notes the similarities within a composition proceed and change without losing his attention to the piece. These kinds of changes permit the lengthening of a work and increase its complexity in temporal and harmonic terms.

As composers increased the sophistication of composition, they decreased some aspects of repetition. Some composers made continuous development primary. The notation has had to adapt to these trends, and the audience has also had to increase its attention to these new trends, because unless the listener's memory and awareness of change is adept, he will lose his way in the piece.

As music has progressed in difficulty of performance demands, notational complexity, and the more demanding requirements of listening and memory, the audience accustomed to the past repertoire of easily listened-to music has either increased its attention or rejected the music. When the audience has had the opportunity to hear this music repeatedly, it has accepted it, and the repertoire has expanded.

Complex music notation is rarely well taught today, partially due to the great majority of the music of the last century still not having been heard with enough repetitions, and the scores for that music have not been read and absorbed by performers and composers. I have much sympathy for these composers, having served more than 500 of them as performer and scribe. More seriously, most performers have been reticent to perform the recent music because it requires study, much rehearsal, and because they do not want to risk performing difficult music for an audience that may reject it. The audience will not change its listening habits until the performers have the courage to fully rehearse the music and put it on their programs.

The present technological era offers computer applications for notation and engraving such as SCORE and Sibelius. With samplers and MIDI, composers can hear how their music will sound, but these aids will not indicate how the performers will play their music. Notation software will not change notation, since one cannot easily use the software until one has become expert with a pencil or pen on the page. Once the craft is in the hand, moving on to the computer is fairly simple and much faster. When new symbols are needed, programmers can add them to the applications. The real key to performance lies in the players' desire to perform the works.

Notation will not disappear until composers decide to have no live performances. The present boredom with the "museum-repertory" is causing the number of ensembles to decrease. The programs are decided by conductors of orchestras and choruses, key players of ensembles, managers, the radio and TV media. The hesitancy of these people to perform music composed after 1930 is the fear of rejection. Live performance offers an artistic hearing that cannot be experienced any other way. When the century of music is offered, repeated, and performed well, the repertoire will be increased.

The publishers of music depend entirely on the success of their composers' works, as well as those scores in public domain that they have in-house. They earn by selling and renting printed scores and parts to performing organizations. In 1976 there were 68 "serious" music publishers in the U.S. Today there are no more than 30. In ten years . . . ?

Learning how to read and hear a score is much easier than learning notation of music with a pencil, pen or computer. It is very easy to teach people who listen to discs and tapes with some regularity to read and comprehend scores. If the lay listeners did this, there would be an immediate demand for live performances of recent music in the halls, and the listeners would have a deeper understanding of the music they hear.

Improvisers who do not read and comprehend notation often do not know what has occurred since 1930 in "serious" music, therefore they seldom try to perform it. Rhythm and tempo, the major elements after pitch and interval, are rarely a part of the improvisors' vocabulary. These are the missing links in their music-making and put off their saying adequately in musical terms what they may want to say. When they learn notation, their music changes immediately and becomes accessible to a larger audience. The organists and keyboardists of the Baroque read and learned the music around and before them. They became extraordinary improvisers. They led the way to tonality and the next 300 years.

Conservatory-trained musicians are usually taught the repertoire of music that is performed in the concert hall. They learn to play and comprehend it to earn a living. When the programs played there begin to seriously investigate the 20th century, the students will be taught. Not before. They rarely improvise music for economic reasons.

It has not gotten more difficult to be a composer in the U. S. Most colleges and universities have made room for composers as teachers since 1950. Our country has such a small concern for any creative artistic culture, commissions for composers are as hard to obtain as they were in the 1950s. Recordings have become more accessible, thanks to such labels as CRI, Nonesuch, New World Records, and some labels in Europe. The costs to publishers to engrave and print new works, and the costs to labels to adequately rehearse and record new works, requires 10 or more years to be profitable. If the costs are returned, publishers and labels will continue to publish and record. When the creative artist is considered a "treasure" in the U. S., there will be a change.

Regarding becoming a composer, see Stravinsky's advice in The Tentacle, April - May 2000, page 16.

When electronic music includes the subtleties of rhythm, it will find an audience waiting for it. Electronic instruments are 100 years old historically, and they have, with the help of engineers, produced some remarkable sounds, but there has developed little relationship to the 300 years of music composition. Control of rhythmic time continues to be a minor concern, with a resultant lack of attention from the listening audience. If composers of this kind of sound-making wish to ally themselves with acoustic performers, the traditional concern with time must in some way become a compositional ingredient. Were there a notational syntax that included rhythmic possibilities, this might provoke electronic composers to create a written language. Writing music to be performed, because of notation, made the past centuries of composition accessible. Sounds, sophisticated or primitive, seem to reach us only when there is a sense of measurable time within the piece.

Music concrète, including sounds other than musical, is developing an audience because of the recognizability of both normal and specifically musical ingredients. The key is this recognition for the listener. This is an oversimplified remark, or course, since a compositional sense must be present to make these works succeed.

A dramatic speech is spoken in time, and the audience knows the flow of time from the context of the live speaker in his role. That sense of time is measurable by our knowledge of the language. If electronic music had a methodology of time that the audience could understand as it listens, it might comprehend the work more easily and enjoy its passing. Without this item, without measuring time, music has nothing to maintain an audiences' attention. When measurable notation was invented, a thousand years ago, it permitted the era of composition as we know it. Now, as rhythm has often become so very complex (or absent) that it cannot be at first understood, rhythm may have lost its value. Without an understood sense of time, as with most electronic music, the music may also have no value, except to the composer. Make a notation!

New music in Seattle is perhaps 20 years behind the East Coast. There is an audience here that seems not to be afraid of it, and applauds it heartily when it occurs. So if there is an appreciative audience, then it is only a matter of the performers having the courage to program it, publicize it, rehearse it fully, and reduce the above figure quickly.

The struggle that began in the 1950s in New York City to play music composed by living composers, as well as that of the first half of the century, began when a handful of players began to fully rehearse difficult programs of music heretofore unheard. Audiences were at first meager, so concerts were then played without selling tickets. By 1963, it was possible to plan six to ten concerts per season, with nearly a full house paying token admittance. The number of new music groups grew rapidly, no two programs were alike, there was a lot of music to program, and there were always premieres. Ticket sales became imperative to pay the players, the audience paid, fundors were found to pay for the deficits, and now all concerts of new music are attended, every cost is professionally met, and new music competes nose to nose with opera, symphony concerts, jazz, et al. This can happen in Seattle.

As for improvisation, the valiant performing by exploratory improvisers in Seattle sometimes succeeds and sometimes fails. Recently, I heard eight unrehearsed soloists playing together for a half-hour of free music, little of it free jazz, but they were all improvising within the octet and it worked. It was amazing. It was a thrill to hear. That performance and other concerts suggest to me that there is something special going on amongst improvisers in Seattle. I look forward to hearing more.

Breaking Through the Mold of an Ivy League Music Department

By Mike Marlin

It was the Fall of 1981, and like many wide-eyed liberal arts college freshmen I found myself gazing at a course catalogue in search of meaningful offerings. I was attending Brown University, an Ivy League institution in the mafia capital of the East Coast: Providence, Rhode Island. After experimenting with a radical "self-guided" curriculum in the late 1960s and early 70s, Brown had returned to a traditional academic parlance. I didn't know what I should choose as a major field of study, but I did know that music was one of my passions, and felt that exploring Brown's music curriculum was worth a try.

So I perused the music classes and found that, aside from "Introduction to Electronic Music," the department seemed to be dominated by Western music theory and history, not unlike a typical "classical" conservatory. Discovering that the wait for entry into Electronic Music would be at least a year due to its limited enrollment and popularity, I decided to make the best of it and enroll in a few traditional music classes in the meantime. Besides, I thought, what good would a music degree do for me, a fledgling rock guitarist whose mother had never quite convinced of the value of chamber music or the symphonies of nineteenth-century Romantic composers?

As far as I was concerned, all classical music sounded the same: syrupy or pompous, repetitive, stagnant rhythms, and performed in sterile rooms with uncomfortable audiences rustling their fine hosiery and clearing their throats. To my naïve ears, Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, the Mahavishnu Orchestra, and Pink Floyd were far more progressive than any symphonic movement I'd heard, and those musicians had obviously eschewed classical training in favor of more relevant musical styles. But I was determined to keep an open mind, and for that first year I studied ear training, Western harmonic theory, the Romanticists, and even the history of folk music. I auditioned for classical guitar instruction, but my attempt at one of Bach's Etudes must have been less than impressive, and I didn't get the gig. So I continued to study and learn about the Haydns, Tchaikovskys, and Mendelssohns, and then promptly forget them at a King Crimson concert at the Providence Civic Center.

Just as I was investigating how many credits I would need to become an English major, three things happened: I moved into a 20-member cooperative house, started interning at WBRU-FM with maverick deejays like Uncle Bernie, and enrolled in the electronic music course. Carberry House, a communal and independent collection of students that had spawned such memorable music groups as The Geeks, The Motion, and Band of Joes, was a confluence of many musical influences ­ the most ardent Jello Biafra fanatic would be living next door to an avid Coltrane disciple or an African drumming devotee. Even more exciting was the communal record collection, consisting of all sorts of weird LPs by Sun Ra, Anthony Braxton, Lothar and the Hand People, or Fred Frith. This was a welcome change from my James Taylor­loving freshman roommate, with whom I had nearly come to blows on numerous occasions, but it signified to me the existence and importance of other musical universes.

At the radio station, I sat cross-legged on the floor soaking in knowledge of the great ones from several rabble-rousing overnight jocks who were unaware that they would be replaced in a year by format-radio automatons with no historical perspective and great enthusiasm for Duran Duran and Supertramp. Uncle Bernie's "Rock and Roll for Adults" program brought together influences such as Frank Zappa and Miles Davis, while Russell "Secretary of the Toke" Baker's "Jazz After Hours" fed me with nutrients such as Albert Ayler and Cecil Taylor. But it was the Hugh McColl Studio of Electronic Music that really helped bridge the gap between what I perceived to be dry, unemotional academic approaches to music and the more primal world of Carberry House's basement jam sessions.

The electronic music studio at Brown was directed by a fellow named Gerald Shapiro, a student of Morton Subotnick at Mills College in the 1960s. Shep, as he was known to students and faculty alike, seemed quite aware of the disparity between his heroes (Cage, Partch, Nancarrow) and the composers being taught in the music department at large. He urged us to dispense with whatever notions we had of what defined "good" music, and to explore new ways of listening. In our first class, he played Subotnick's classic "Silver Apples of the Moon" and then asked for comments. A few people tried to analyze the form as random noise, but most were silent observers with worried facial expressions. Shep told us of strange experiments at Mills College in which he and his peers were blindfolded and had condenser microphones stuck to their abdomens and wired to a crude oscillator; the lights would then be turned out, and the only form of communication would be the sound one emitted when moving or touching another subject's arm, face, or...? The fun really began when Shep introduced us to an array of patch bays, the wall mounted ARP synthesizer in all its splendor.

The beauty of the ARP was its ability to visually demonstrate what a waveform looked and sounded like simultaneously. Rows of pink and white pegs lined the giant oscillating machine, and by placing those pegs around an x/y axis, a sine wave could be formed and later augmented by placing other pegs into position around it. Students were encouraged to experiment with layering waveforms and sculpting compositions in real time or via tape editing on a four-track reel-to-reel recorder. As I experimented with the ARP in laboratory sessions, the class continued to meet weekly, exploring issues of tone and timbre, critiquing student compositions as they surfaced, and discussing works by such musicians and composers as Edgard Varèse, Joan LaBarbara, Pauline Oliveros, György Ligeti, and other avatars of electronic music and new composition. One facet of these presentations that I particularly enjoyed was Shep's quixotic claim that all music was derivative, and at the same time, that each piece was original. I was admonished by the good professor for making comparisons when critiquing a piece, and at one point he advised me to "throw away your record collection and go sit atop a mountain with your eyes closed."

The second half of the course involved recording techniques in an eight-track studio designed for live instrumental recording or digital music. Perhaps the most novel association for those interested in computer music was Brown's purchase of a Synclavier, a highly expensive sampling keyboard operated and loaded from 5-1/4 inch floppy disks! I dabbled a bit with this behemoth, but soon gave up in frustration and proceeded to record some of my rock bands and a few improvised pieces. The class was fortunate to have several guest lecturers, among them the amazing bassist Mark Dresser (for a discussion of overtones) and the incomparable improvisers Davey Williams and LaDonna Smith, from whom I immediately snapped up several

Transmuseq albums with my newfound respect for alternate approaches to traditional instruments. Although I never felt quite satisfied with my own novice recordings, I did find that my ear was developing at a much greater rate than it ever had in the music department's ear training class. Perhaps that is because dissonant intervals were dismissed in the ear training class as useful only when trying to deliberately perturb the listener. I have heard this grievance from others who attended conventional music-education programs in the early and mid-1980s. I wonder if seconds and sixths still cause consternation in today's music schools.

The year came to an end, and I took a leave of absence and headed out West to visit friends and decompress from academia. When I returned to school a year later, I became a Media and Communications major. I felt I had neither the patience required of a "highbrow" composer-in-training nor the desire to compete in the staid, cottonmouth world of academe, despite jewels like Gerald Shapiro and the Electronic Music Studio. I discovered that reading great works of semiotics and applying them to deconstructing media messages (including music) was more stimulating than either a course in English Studies or Music Theory.

Years later, I ran into Shep's daughter and learned that he had become Chair of Brown's Music Department, and that he was constantly fighting an uphill battle with other faculty members who felt threatened by twentieth-century composition and/or improvisation. Yet I also gleaned that he had managed to get a Computer Music class into the curriculum, and that the Brown Orchestra performed works by Xenakis and Stockhausen on occasion.

I can only imagine similar tales of frustration and perhaps jubilation from students with a formal music education who may be reading these pages. I encourage you to write them down or at least ruminate on whether formal music schooling was a help or a hindrance. For me, it was both off-putting and insightful, and I would probably never have arrived at my present quest to hear where my ears have not gone before.

Sturgeon's Log

Sturgeon's Log profiles CDs of interest to friends and fomenters of adventurous music, regardless of release date. You can obtain these releases from stores, specialty houses, or on the Web. Please do not send CDs to the Tentacle for review.

Krzysztof Penderecki: Orchestral Works Volume One
(Naxos, CD)

Penderecki burst onto the scene in the early 1960s with his pathbreaking Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima. Combining serial and aleatoric techniques, the screaming, whirring, skittering, and howling strings of the Threnody conjure an unforgettable sound world. Although Penderecki lapsed into a more accessible style in the 1970s, the Third Symphony (1988-95) blends the startling colors of his 1960s music with the traditional melodic and rhythmic phrasing of Brahms, et al. Frankly, Penderecki's Third put me to sleep, but the fine performances of the Threnody, De Natura Sonoris II (1971), and the seldom-heard Fluorescences for Orchestra (1961) make this budget-priced disc a must. Next year, Naxos plans to inaugurate a twenty-first century music series; let's hope they tackle Sony's aborted Ligeti edition!

Karlheinz Stockhausen: Klavierstücke I-XIV
(Stockhausen Verlag, 3 CD set)

In the 1950s, Stockhausen cemented his reputation with the first 11 Klavierstücke ("Piano Pieces"). These virtuosic piano pieces probe deeper into serialism and address silence, notation, chance elements ("aleatoric fields"), and mobile form. Unhelpful simplifications aside, these pieces are knotty, challenging to the ear, and beautiful. This recent studio recording seats the listener at the piano, an aural perspective that conveys pianist Ellen Corver's astounding touch and extended performance techniques (e.g., vocalizing and interior work in Piano Piece XIII) vividly. The thick booklet contains score excerpts, notes, and commentary by the composer and the pianist. Home-recording buffs will be boggled by the photos of the microphone setup. Also included are instructions for setting proper playback levels, and a loudspeaker test track. Stockhausen's CDs rarely show up in Seattle stores, so write for a free catalog: Stockhausen Verlag, Kettenberg 15, 51515 Kurten, Germany.

Alvin Curran: Crystal Psalms
(New Albion, CD)

On the nights of November 9 and 10, 1938, Nazi storm troopers roamed in Jewish neighborhoods throughout Germany breaking windows, looting Jewish businesses and homes, and burning synagogues. Twenty-six thousand Jews were beaten, arrested, and sent to concentration camps. Composed for a multi-station radio broadcast marking the 50th anniversary of Kristallnacht ("The Night of Broken Glass"), Crystal Psalms integrates live musicians performing in six European cities and prerecorded sounds of cantillation, counting in Hebrew, etc. into a mesmerizing electro-acoustic tapestry. Once I recovered from the piece's brute impact, I marveled at Curran's ear for layering disparate textures. I wish I could explain how he fashioned an effective piece of political music without tawdry preaching or sentimentalizing!

William Hooker/Christian Marclay/Lee Ranaldo: Bouquet
(Knitting Factory, CD)

While staying solvent with Sonic Youth, guitarist Lee Ranaldo is active in the hinterlands of experimental music, gigging with a gaggle of adventurous improvisers such as drummer William Hooker and turntablist Christian Marclay. Recorded live, Bouquet captures this trio slithering from quiet drones prickling with amplified LP surface noise to a pillowy wall of guitars. The biggest pitfall in improvised music is the tendency to blather and crowd out other musicians. In my experience, drummers and DJs often endanger, if not extinguish, the chance for players to exchange the roles of leader, accompanist, and soloist. Thankfully, Hooker is an alert accompanist, and Marclay is not another pulse-peddling DJ. Rather than mix songs and inject beats or bass lines, Marclay, a seminal turntablist in New York's improvising scene, uses vinyl as an instrument, melding LP surface noise, spastic glissandi, and incongruous musics such as corn-sweetened Muzak strings with Hooker and Ranaldo. Bouquet's best section begins with William Hooker. Recalling the melodic pummeling of Art Blakey, Hooker leads the way into uptempo territory. Suddenly, Marclay inserts an ululating operatic tenor, and Hooker responds instantly, dexterously underscoring the tenor's wailing hiccups. Ranaldo joins in too, deftly adding chunks of guitar. A fine set of improvised music.

Vladimir Ussachevsky: Film Music
(New World Records, CD)

This CD contains two film scores, Line of Apogee and Suite from No Exit. Both offer a primer on the venerable tape-music techniques of splicing, reversing, transposing, and reverberating sound. The recording has the familiar 1960s electronic music hiss, but the pieces remain keen and fresh. Ussachevsky (1911-90), who cofounded and subsequently directed the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center, probably didn't have too much time to compose, which makes this a welcome addition to his slender discography.

James Dillon: Ignis Noster
(Montaigne, CD)

Along with Chris Dench, Michael Finnissy, and Brian Ferneyhough, James Dillon has been tagged as a "New Complexity" composer. Viewed as the successors to the postwar avant-garde, the New Complexity genre pushes the limits of instrumental virtuosity ­ tonality and technical limits be damned. Ignis Noster contains two orchestral works, both of which roil with unusual ferocity. This fine CD is part of Montaigne's massive re-release of their contemporary music series, and may get overlooked because of the presence of now-classic recordings of Elliott Carter's and Iannis Xenakis's chamber music.

Morton Feldman: For Samuel Beckett
(Kairos, CD)

For Samuel Beckett for chamber ensemble was Morton Feldman's last composition. Although intended to be heard at the threshold of silence, the hushed glimmers of this piece beckoned me to the volume knob for a closer listen to Feldman's pianissimo sorcery. Written in traditional notation, dissonant groups of instruments elongate, overlap, and flow into one another; the result is haunting and unsettling.

Morton Feldman: First Recordings: 1950s
(mode, CD)

What attracted me to this CD was the prospect of hearing Feldman's only piece for magnetic tape. Brimming with nervous, truculent sounds, Intersection was initially notated on graph paper ­ like much of his acoustic music of the early 1950s. The remainder of the disc boasts several first recordings of Feldman's arresting piano music. Stark, minimal, and explosive.

­ Christopher DeLaurenti

Mastering: Intent, Art, and Commerce

by Alex Keller

The process of converting musical compositions into muzak (by their definition "business music") compositions involves taking parts that are very high or very low and transposing them so as not to be surprising to the listener. Performances should be mild, not too much of either aggression or gentleness. The intention is to create music with no surprises, comforting for the shopper or the patient in the dentist's chair. In his book The Tuning of the World, R. Murray Schafer refers to muzak as "Moozak," for its intention of lulling the listener into bovine obedience.

Compact disc mastering, in a commercial music context, serves the same purpose: creating homogeneity, with the intent of selling product. Pop music is mastered to make the recording as loud as possible, and to "sweeten" any work that is deficient in or overemphasizes certain frequencies. The two primary techniques used are equalization (reinforcing or subtracting particular frequencies) and compression (limiting peak loudness, so that the overall piece can be louder). Neither of these techniques by default stifle creativity, but the typical mastering engineer will use these processes together to make sure that one release sounds like the previous one.

In the context of creative sound works, mastering should reinforce the artist's intent ­ invoking Satan, emulating Abba, getting laid, whatever. So the questions become much more subjective: The mastering engineer knows what a grand piano should sound like, but how about a coffee can scraped by a bench grinder? What if the sounds are supposed to be distorted, or the two channels are meant to go 180 degrees out of phase? A multitude of intentions are possible, one of which could be homogeneity, but in creative music that should not be the default.

The very reason I rarely do electronic compositions anymore is that it is such a painstaking task: listening on 50 different stereos and headphones, changing equalization and level continuously, and agonizing endlessly over the smallest changes and decisions are creatively grueling and ultimately not much fun. This is the stage where as an artist I make exacting decisions as to how a piece should sound, and when I am done making those decisions, the piece is finished, bit by digital bit as it should exist, not to be changed. Should a finished sculpture have its rough edges tidied up a bit before exhibition?

To me, mastering an acoustic instrumental performance is (almost) necessary, as a good mastering engineer can really make an instrumental performance shine. But if I have created an electronic piece, and I want one section to be especially shrill, or very quiet, or almost below the threshold of hearing, I would not authorize its release if it were compressed or equalized.

If you will be working with a mastering engineer, good communication can make it a very productive experience. Play the engineer some of your recordings and discuss what you do and don't like about them. Bring some CDs that, in your opinion, sound like you want yours to, and be prepared to discuss why. Listen to the work being mastered in different environments: a walkman, a car stereo, a boombox, both loud and quiet, and make notes on what you would like to be different. Assert your opinion, use the experienced judgment of your engineer, and use your ears.

Alex Keller is a sound artist and educator living in Seattle, and would like to thank the Sonicabal for inspiring and contributing to this article. He will be releasing a CD of his works early next year, and currently performs with Christopher DeLaurenti as rebreather.

Noise-Lovin'Ned

by Ffej

Catch and Release

Catch & Release is a department of subjective reportage and opinion. Our contributors' views may not reflect those of the Tentacle Collective or its members.

Han Bennink, Paul Bley, Bill Frisell & Lee Konitz
Earshot Jazz Festival, On The Boards, Seattle, 10/24/00

by Dennis Rea

My first thought upon seeing this improbable aggregation of luminaries listed in the pre-festival publicity was that it was the brainchild of marketers, not the musicians themselves. My suspicions were reinforced during a conversation with Han Bennink after September's ICP Orchestra gig, when he confessed that he knew little about Bill Frisell. So it was with some trepidation that I attended this summit meeting of four titans of modern jazz -- especially with the memory still fresh in mind of last year's all-star train wreck, the equally improbable New Art Quartet.

Was this booking another case of Earshot's now familiar "Who do we book with Frisell and Horvitz this year" policy? Was this mix-n-match ensemble simply a way to fill a concert hall, or would these four masters overcome their considerable stylistic dissimilarities and create collective music of real substance? Intrigued, I decided to fork over the $15 to find out.

I've long had enormous respect for all four players. Bley has been a personal hero for years, with his singularly enigmatic piano style, equal parts abstraction, deep blues, and profound melancholia. Although Konitz's brand of refined chamber-bop is not my forte, I marvel at his seemingly effortless melodic invention, and salute him for his important role in advancing jazz as an art music in the company of Tristano, Marsh, et al. I'm no fan of Frisell's recent aw-shucks Americana (News for Lulu was more my speed), but as a guitarist myself, I have nothing but admiration for his sophisticated PoMo synthesis of styles and techniques. As for Bennink, he's delighted me with his cyclonic percussive outbursts ever since Dolphy's The Last Date, and a lucky jam-session encounter with him in Beijing some years ago stands as one of the highlights of my musical career.

Although the four musicians had never played together as a quartet, there were several previous connections among them. Frisell performed regularly with Bley for a period, and worked with Konitz on Kenny Wheeler's Angel Song. Bley and Konitz have a history of collaboration dating back at least to the 1970s. Bennink put in an appearance on the 1971 Paul Bley/Annette Peacock LP Dual Unity, and doubtless crossed paths with Bley on the European improv circuit in later years. With all of these common threads, one could reasonably expect the four players to produce a full evening of compelling music. Unfortunately, we weren't given much of a chance to find out. For the most part, the players sidestepped the question of whether they could function as a coherent unit. Instead, most of the evening was given over to solo performances and relatively safe duo groupings, allowing each player to remain largely in his own comfort zone.

The concert began with an eloquent soliloquy from Konitz, so fluid and relaxed that you'd think he was born with a reed in his mouth. The saxophonist was then joined by hometown hero Frisell for a lovely take on "Body and Soul," the guitarist's rich chord-melody twining with the veteran's quicksilver melodic runs. The stage was then turned over to Bley, who gave us a haunting, skeletal blues shot through with the occasional atonal flourish, emanating a powerful gravitas.

Any fears that the evening would be dominated by musical introspection were summarily dashed when Bennink took the stage for an exhilarating (if somewhat overlong) percussive tour-de-force incorporating drum kit, pieces of wood, his shoes, the stage, and whatever other sound sources were within reach. This brand of musical horseplay is Bennink's patented shtick ­ ironic, considering his stature as a vaunted avatar of 'free' improvisation ­ yet it is always riveting, no matter how many times you've seen it. An unabashed entertainer in a genre dominated by pensive artistes, the ruddy Dutchman clearly relishes his role as a spoiler, and is notorious for yanking the rug out from under collaborators with his rude outbursts and abrupt left turns. But when Konitz walked onstage during a Bennink snare-and-brushes solo for an impromptu duet, the drummer deferentially reverted to straight swing time, perhaps sensing Konitz's apparent unwillingness to engage with the other musicians on any but his own terms, as he did throughout the concert.

Things grew problematic for me when Frisell joined Bley for a duet improvisation. The guitarist seemed uncharacteristically lost as he struggled with his latest effects pedal, spewing queasy backwards guitar sounds that clashed awkwardly with Bley's precise pianistic architecture; in this situation, the unembellished guitar tone that Frisell had used in his earlier duet with Konitz would have served the music better. Later, during Frisell's rambunctious duo set with Bennink ­ presumably their first meeting ­ the guitarist again opted for effects overkill. No doubt influenced by Bennink's reputation as a 'zany' character, Frisell went the obvious route by playing the 'wild and crazy guy' himself, launching a fusillade of sonic gimmickry. The duet was intermittently successful, and certainly titillated the capacity crowd. But oddly for a guitarist who uses a lot of sound processing myself, I find that I prefer Frisell's straight playing to his effected sound. For that matter, I've long felt that Frisell's rep among the media and public as a sonic innovator is misplaced ­ especially when one considers the pioneering work of earlier but less well-known guitar experimentalists such as Keith Rowe and Fred Frith ­ and that his real strength lies in his supremely tasteful 'inside' playing. For truly cutting-edge electric guitar manipulation, I'll take another Bill ­ Horist ­ anyday.

Only at the end of the second set did the four musicians finally perform as a quartet, playing a 'free' piece followed by some fairly straight-ahead jazz. To these ears, the foursome's attempt at collective improvisation was largely a failure. Not surprisingly given their histories, only Bennink and Bley seemed truly comfortable as free improvisers, capable of chameleon-like tonal and dynamic shifts; Frisell relied mostly on idiomatic licks, while Konitz stubbornly played diatonic jazz melodies as though he were on a different bandstand. After a few minutes the players themselves sensed that the experiment wasn't working, and slipped back into well-worn jazz chord changes like a pair of comfy old slippers.

In the end, I was glad I attended the concert, for each of the principals performed splendidly at one time or another, usually when playing alone. Yet as a foursome, the quartet clearly was not greater than the sum of its parts, and failed to meet the high expectations that were perhaps unfairly laid on them. For all its flashes of brilliance, this 'summit meeting' only underscored the hazards of artificially assembling supergroups for marketing purposes.

Tentacle Helmsman Dennis Rea is a guitarist with LAND, Stackpole, Axolotl, and Eric Apoe.

Shuddering at Shutters: When Cameras Interfere with Music

a Tentacle polemic by Mike Marlin

For many years I have noted the presence and distracting influence of photographers at performances by some of the most acclaimed jazz and New Music artists to visit the Northwest. After sharing my frustration at the preponderance of loud camera clicking with other aficionados, I have learned that I am not alone.

To shatter the sacred sounds of impassioned music can only be described as sacrilegious, akin to the ill-begotten chime of an audience member's cell phone. For whatever reason ­ and I'll try to elucidate why I think the visual archivist perseveres in direct opposition to gentle confrontation ­ capturing a musical performance on film is encouraged by music-media publishers everywhere. Live music photojournalism, I suggest, is a dangerous trend, upsetting to the focused listener and disrespectful of the sanctity of a performance and the relationship between performer and audience. Without any personal vendettas, and with respect to the presenters of so many exceptional concerts, I would like to propose a new paradigm for changing the music photojournalism process.

We all know that a photo of a performer ­ accompanying an article, review, or calendar entry ­ is a window into that performer's emotional and expressive character. The Tentacle is not averse to running photos of live performances, and it would be hypocritical of me to suggest that other magazines desist from snapping pics at live events. To obfuscate the matter ever so slightly, I must confess that I am completely inept and ignorant when it comes to photography; this is due not only to my visual impairment, but probably to a lifelong aural orientation. However, I do know that some cameras are far noisier than others. My hunch is that the more expensive and sophisticated the camera, the louder it is. Professional music photographers are thus likely to brandish the most egregious noisemakers when stepping into position to point and shoot. But it is not only the abrasive snap of a camera shutter that apalls me ­ it is the lack of discretion and the obliviousness to the sonic environment displayed by most music photojournalists.

A few years ago, a photographer at an Earshot Jazz Festival performance was pushed and nearly decked by an angry John Zorn when the cameraman noisily shot his roll while conspicuously squatting a few feet from the stage. I am surprised that this sort of confrontation does not occur more often. I have witnessed many instances where a photographer, tip-toeing quickly and furtively between the front row and the stage, kneels on one knee and begins to snap shot after shot, sometimes up to 20 in a row, each with a loud "clack." Almost without fail, the photographer chooses a quiet and intimate musical moment to engage in this repetitive motion. But even the most decibel-driven musical mayhem cannot drown out the disruptive, spring-back thwack of the professional camera. And it is usually only after being confronted that said photojournalist begins shooting only at crescendos and other loud interludes.

From the photographer's vantage point, I can understand the desire to capture the artist in a more reflective pose; not only does the artist appear more "soulful" at these moments, but he or she is not moving as quickly and is thus easier to document. I also presume that, to the avid photo-historian, the sound made by the camera apparatus is either a steadying signal of professional pride, or perhaps does not even register in consciousness because all attention is focused on the perfect angle. When confronted by audience members whose pristine listening environment has been violated, the photographer's usual defensive reaction is understandable if not necessarily legitimate. I also suspect that the feeling of satisfaction at publishing the ultimate snapshot in Earshot Jazz, the P.I., the Times, or on the Web overshadows the memory of that violation. I was troubled to witness utter disregard of the sonic atmosphere at the otherwise incredible performance by Hamza el Din, Charles Lloyd, and Coleman Barks at Seattle's Town Hall ­ the final event of the 2000 Earshot Jazz Festival. As I had observed at the Cecil Taylor, Dave Holland Quintet, Frisell/Bley/Bennink/Konitz, Trio 3, and other sumptuous Earshot festival events, the photojournalist on hand seemed completely oblivious to the interruption of vibrations and energy flow that happened each time that familiar "clackety-thwack" pulverized the sonic space.

Before I conclude and offer some suggestions, I want to acknowledge that there are plenty of other aural distractions at live musical events. People talk (a heinous crime that I have addressed in these pages in the past), sneeze, cough, laugh inappropriately, sniff, clear throats, or rustle clothing. Most of these actions seem either involuntary or at least organic. Camera positioning and shutter manipulation are controllable actions, and thus should be scrutinized in a different light.

If the almighty photo of a live musical performance must endure, it would seem that there might be a solution, a way to avoid the awkward lope toward the stage and firing off of camerical reverberations. Perhaps the photojournalist could use a digital camera, a much quieter alternative. I have heard the compromise posited that the photographer be allowed to snap photos only during the first piece and then be restrained for the rest of the evening. An excellent suggestion from a fellow musician is that photographers be allowed to take pictures during sound checks or in a prearranged backstage session (with the artists' permission, of course) before the performance. Any of these solutions seem plausible to me, and the sound check or dressing room scenarios the least detrimental to avid listening. More importantly, I think it worth asking, why bother with live music photography at all? I am not advocating a musical press clipped of mug shots; I'm just here to call for the separation of church and darkroom.

Flotsam & Jetsam

"Fair jazz, not free jazz!"

-- transmitted via trombonist Greg Powers

Jetsam

"It is stirring enough to rouse the American eagle from his crag, and set him to shriek exultantly while he hurls his arrows at the aurora borealis."

-- the Philadelphia Public Ledger, describing the debut performance of John Philip Sousa's "Stars and Stripes Forever" on May 14, 1897

Sinker

"The sound of the bullpen phone used to be the most frightening sound in Seattle next to the words, 'Please stand while Kenny G plays the national anthem.'"

-- ESPN story on the Seattle Mariners