Music Theory

Wednesday took me up to Leeds to work with the White Rosettes on a collection of three stupendously big David Wright arrangements, any one of which would be a major undertaking for a normal chorus. But the White Rosettes aren’t particularly interested in normality, and it gave us the opportunity to explore the specific challenges that monster charts present.

The vocal challenges are those of stamina and control, of course. And the White Rosettes didn’t need my help with these. They operate at a high level of vocal fitness, engendered not just by the challenges they set themselves in their repertoire but also by the pace and intensity of their rehearsal habits.

But music such as this sets mental challenges too, and they can’t be solved purely by doing what you’d do for regular pieces, only more so.

In my previous post on this subject, we looked at the basic building block of comedy, the set-up/punchline dyad. (Dyad is such a poncy music-theory kind of word, isn’t it? Possibly ‘combo’ is more appropriate here.) Our tutor, James Cook, quite sensibly started us off on the purest, simplest form of joke – the one-liner – in order to make this fundamental structure clear. You know, like when you’re teaching harmony, you build a lot of phrases using I-V-I before you start doing fancy stuff like substitute chords and modulations.

Now, one-liners are great as instant pay-off. They require the absolute minimum from the audience in terms of cognitive engagement over time, as the punchline comes hard on the heels of the set-up. No need for deferred gratification at all. It’s a spend-all-your-pocket-money-at-once style of comedy.

For some reason which I cannot fathom, I find I have signed up for an evening class in stand-up comedy. Given how much of my life I spend chivvying others into scary situations, it is very good for me to do something utterly terrifying, and I am sure everyone I have coached recently will be delighted to know I am well out of my comfort zone; indeed skirting on the borderline between learning and panic.

But in addition to new skills and new friends, the classes are also giving me some new insights into such musical subjects as rhythm, structure and tension-release patterns in performance.

This is a continuation of my last post on the techniques cults use for thought reform and their parallels in the worlds of choral recruitment and choral discipline.

Reminder: while it does make somewhat disturbing reading in places, we need to remember that new religious movements aren't necessarily or inherently malign. And, whilst I first started down this track of using the sociology of religion to analyse singing organisations because of the evangelical language used by choral enthusiasts ('Let's spread the word!'), I am of course using the word cult for deliberately provocative purposes. I find it challenges me to think more deeply, and am hoping it has the same effect on you.

So, to continue our list:

Stanislavski’s An Actor Prepares is one of those books about which I’ve been thinking, ‘Must read that someday,’ for years. Someday arrived by chance recently when I spotted it on the ‘recently returned’ shelf at the library and picked it up on an impulse. And by now of course wished I’d read it years ago.

Back when I was teaching Musical Philosophies and Aesthetics to the postgrads at Birmingham Conservatoire, a frequent subject for discussion was the relationship between the text and the performer. Is the performer a creator or merely a puppet? How can a performer speak with their own voice whilst still being true to the composer’s message? What, exactly, is interpretation?

I seem to be back in a bah-humbug mood this year over seasonal songs. After last year’s metaphorical extravaganza, I find myself getting curmudgeonly over some of the lyrics bestowed upon us by the Victorian reinvention of Christmas. It’s not so much the clichés that exercise me this year (though I’m only restraining myself becauseI’ve said all that before), as the general poetic ineptitude.

First, for a mild example: Carol of the Bells. This is a Ukrainian carol, furnished with English words by Peter J Wilhousky. The basic message works okay with the music – the narrative of the winter air alive with merrily-jingling bells chimes with the obsessive motivic repetition in the music.

But there are persistent bumps in the prosody. Take this verse for instance:

I have commented before in passing on the way that popular melodies from the 1960s onwards look - on paper – more rhythmically complex than tunes from the earlier parts of the 20th century. They appear to have a lot more syncopation, and they seem rarely to cadence exactly on the beat – instead either anticipating or delaying over the barline.

The reason for this is not, however, because popular music has particularly become more complex over time (you get examples of both simple and complex melodies throughout the 20th century), but because the processes of musical production have changed.

The current issue of Research Issues in Music Education has an article examining the various functions of a conductor. In some ways it is an exemplary bit of research: well-rooted in the literature, clear in its rationale and methods, logical in the the drawing of its conclusions. But in other ways it demonstrates the problematic disconnect between conducting research as it appears in doctoral programmes and education journals and the lives of real musicians.