Ok, this was due about a month ago, apologies.
1. Faster from the Sun (Josh & Rosalind): Of all the vocal combinations that have arisen out of our two semesters together, this may be my favorite. Others sound good, but rarely does the whole equal more than the sum of the parts, as it truly does here. Rosalind, you just barely missed the first hiccupy phrasal ending, but nailed every one after that; and you helped keep Josh’s usually arrhythmic singing in line, which was an interesting change from his usual delivery. This is a great little number because it seems so simple – there are so many songs about leaving, about going home, and yet who can say what this one’s really about? Is “Mama” actually the singer’s mother? If so, why isn’t home where she is? There’s no bitterness about the departure, just mournful apology, which is exceedingly rare in a song about leaving somebody, regardless of who they are. And what about these bullets? A mystery. But the singer seems very sure of himself – making strong affirmative statements (“I know”), if somewhat vague and possibly allegorical, and repeating the same verse pattern – until the very end, where the lyrics take a turn for the vulnerable, unsure, and expectant (“Someday, maybe…” and “I know I, well, I hope to see you round”). Also, the distribution of the harmonica interludes – H, 1, 2, 3, H, 4, H – is somewhat surprising, almost as if the last verse is an afterthought or an epilogue. Oh, yeah, and I like it a lot. (I have a bad habit of writing about the song itself rather than about my reaction to it... apologies in advance)
2. Good St. George (Roman): I really hope you’re still using this tuning . I also hope you’re working on your enunciation (which, after listening to these recordings, I realize I need to do as well), because I know there are some great lines in here that I can’t quite understand – is that “This illness won’t last long”? and “I’d lie, but I don’t need a god”? and “Found a cure/ don’t work on me”? Post the lyrics to your blog, please! And I’m not very familiar with the legend either – and as I understand it, there are multiple and conflicting versions, as with any legend – but I don’t think that’s really relevant, because this song is definitely strong enough to stand on its own; and what's more, the song has multiple and conflicting voices, so it all works out. I love how there are lots of different parts but, perhaps due in part to the strong tonality of the tuning, and the fact that every part except the dissonant bridge repeats at least once, it feels totally unified, even in spite of the shifting perspectives (from 1st to 3rd person, etc)… I wonder how this song would sound if it had a part written from the POV of the dragon. I also really like how the strumming pattern varies from the first “verse” (is it a verse? I have no logical or consistent basis for calling it a “verse,” except that melodically to me it sounds like a verse. The bit after “I’ll pray to send you on.”) to the second – check out “Alive with the Glory of Love” (or you might prefer the acoustic version), which uses the same strumming pattern, and pretty much anything else off “…Is a Real Boy”, especially “Admit It!!!” Can’t really think of anything else to say except congratulations, and perhaps spend a little more time on the “Faith in all/ Faith in me” part, in which, as I recall, you said you were improvising some of the lyrics – it works fine as it stands, but I think that you, like me, do best when you spend a nearly-obsessive amount of time with your words. In any case I’m glad you’ve gained enough distance from your infamous relationship to write songs like this, which are clearly written in your musical/lyrical voice (“can’t fuck around”, etc.), and yet are universal enough to stand alone and create a genuinely dramatic, dynamic, level stage on which artist and audience can share in agency, appreciation, and ambiguity.
3. Wild Thing (Julie & Jeremy): Hands down, this song wins the prize for most impressive use of one guitar and one voice (not to mention for most tasteful use of dynamic contrast). Jeremy, the progression is unbeatable, especially that major chord on “things”; and after that entrancing finger-picking pattern, the change to strumming supplies a powerful sense of arrival and finality, which fits perfectly with “I’ll be here to stay.” Julie, I don’t know how you managed to sing this well with your cold, but damn. I guess the fuzzy headiness adds to the dark-and-dreamy aspect. It’s also really impressive that you found such a haunting and distinctive melody hidden in these dense, colorful chords. The minor 2nds are perfect – you have a way of sliding between semitones that makes them sound eerily close to each other, which makes the space between the two pitches seems miniscule although it is actually a broad and richly textured tonal field (but I don’t know how legitimate it is to speak of “pitches” these days – sometimes I feel like your singing style, with its impressive range and tense embellishments and superb control, might be best suited for Harry Partch’s songs, which I suppose have pitches, but not necessarily the same pitches most people think of when they hear the word “pitches”). I don’t know who is responsible for the lyrics, but it is interesting that in your version, Max remains King of the Wild Things, instead of returning home and finishing his supper…
4. They Took the Kids Away (Jeremy): OH MY GOD IT'S IN 11/8. Maybe that's why this song always gives me the creeps. Or because you stole Julie's eerie minor 2nds on “visions” near the end. Or because the lyrics are really quite chilling (this coming from someone who has neither seen The Hurt Locker nor been in a warzone... but still, the lyrics are super scary and sad). The perspective of the character (I assume) from the movie makes the lyrics seem even more immediate and heartrending, and as always your uncanny ability to lose yourself in the intensity of the performance is an inspiration. As I recall from our work together on “Astral Companion”, you like “songs that build”, and the one-TWO-three-FOUR!-five arc of this song is a great example – it’s almost like taking song-long crescendo of “Wild Thing” a step further by reprising the initial “calm before the storm,” including the first line of the lyrics.
5. It Rains in His Heart (Butch & Katherine & Parker & Ben): A really fascinating song with lots of clever and effective doubling – the back-and-forth from 3/4 to 6/8, the second voice that appears in the bridge, and of course the whole trope of translation – although I must say, it’s hard to beat this version. The stuttering, stumbling shift to 6/8 (between the 2nd chorus and the bridge) is exactly how I imagine a drunken boat would sound, lost in (or rather framed by) the “song of the rain”. It’s interesting that this song has a somewhat similar structure to another tune in this concert inspired by precipitation – namely, “Fjord” – but that neither of these two songs is a proper arch (i.e. ABCDCBA) as ought to be implied by 1) the line Des noyés descendaient dormir, à reculons! in Le Bateau Ivre, and 2) the water cycle references in “Fjord”. Subverting those kinds of expectations is always fun. Maybe there’s something about the co-writing process that lends itself to songs that vary dramatically in the bridge, then recapitulate the original themes afterwards, especially with the counterpoint of an additional voice. I still can’t believe this is the first time you two have sung together onstage! It sounds too good for that to be true; in fact, I may have spoken too soon about the unique synergy of Josh’s and Rosalind’s voices. I’m not enough of a synesthete to identify which of you is blue and which is yellow (l’éveil jaune et bleu des phosphores chanteurs), but hopefully someone can figure it out. In any case, the doubling also appears (and foreshadows its later development) in the verses, where each quatrain of the lyrics moves from a relatively faithful translation of Rimbaud’s poem to an adapted, freely-translated couplet, as the guitar sneaks back and forth between simple and complex meters. Very cool. Parker, your guitar work added a lot of texture, especially the little raindrops, and that chord you play in the bridge after “sleep”. Ben, your line in the chorus has not left my head since December 6; I only wish I could hear a little more of the bass through the rest of the song, but maybe it got lost in the mix – or maybe the part blends in so seamlessly that I can’t even hear it out. And to be honest, as much as I would have loved to play along, I agree, it sounds better without the djembe, which would have cluttered and confused the time shifts and violated the purity of the dual-guitar aesthetic.
6. The Ballad of Seamus Taylor (Ben & Rosalind): Obviously a lot of fun to write and to play. The trading-off singing structure achieves a hilarious balance between two lyrical tendencies, Ben’s seriocomically morbid and Rosalind’s wistfully whimsical. Schonwald, you totally tamed that tongue-twister, “He longed for the silk [swill? swoon? something else?] of swirling salt seas”; and Ben, ditto on “The west wind is wailing away”. Basically anyone who writes a song with a lot of alliteration will get a glowing review from me.
7. Pink Pills (Ben & Butch): Well, you finally did it. Congratulations, Ben, on writing a song whose lyrics are impenetrably opaque. Even the sample in the bridge (is that from your cave piece?), which by all rights should illuminate the song from the inside out, is pretty much inaudible, except as a vague series of mumbles and bumps. The first line always makes me think of beavers, I guess because of the word “pelt” (although before I read your blog I thought it was “belt”, which seems like it should change the meaning pretty dramatically, but then again, maybe not. This song brings up pretty big questions about whether a song has to be about anything, or whether music can be about anything – because if the lyrics are incomprehensible, the only source of emotional resonance is the music, which is of course minor in tonality and evocative perhaps of a certain genre of music that is associated with mournfulness and bitterness and anxiety; but the music in turn is colored by the words [like “bright” and “pale” and “green”, although none of these really helps generate a stable basis of meaning], which form a kind of shifting field of meaning with no center or direction. Nevertheless, words like “automatic” and “machine” and “wound” seem to convey a moribund postmodern ennui). And that last line – “There’s a t-shirt in the water” – could be about something as tame as laundry or as grim as a drowning. The syncopated bassline under “big green/ cauterize that wound” kicks some serious ass, as do both of Butch’s solos – those parts are “minor” in key only.
8. Easygoing Easy Gone (Parker & Julie & Ben & me): Why isn’t it #1 yet? Julie, you totally pulled off the teenybopper trick (and Parker, your lyrics, as usual, are so funny that I can’t help thinking they might be just a little bit serious). Ben, thanks for helping find that synth sound, which I hope wasn’t too annoying for the audience, although in a way I think that was kind of the point (although I probably could have backed off in the bridge a little bit… usually when I don’t know what to play, I sort of give up and throw out so many notes that no one notices how irrelevant they all are.) But it was actually fun and challenging to decide how best to accompany this song [especially when I couldn’t hear myself! Have you ever tried playing along without being able to hear yourself? It’s a lot of fun, I highly recommend it], which is harmonically simple but demanding of a lush and convincing arrangement. And of course, every pop song needs a hook, which I did my best to help with, hopefully striking a decent balance between supporting the vocals and filling the gaps between them. It’s easy to get carried away with that portamento, though. I’m not sure how that warp-speed noise got in the end, maybe thanks to Butch’s brilliant mixing or Ben’s tricked-out mini Korg, but it’s pretty ace.
9. Coathanger (Ben & Ben's Computer): I always liked “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea”, but this song makes me want to spend a little more quality time with “On Avery Island”. For some reason we have turned out very few riff-centric songs, and while I wouldn’t necessarily call this song riff-centric, it certainly has more distinctive melodic musical passages than many of our other songs. I think it’s very fashionable these days to avoid “the riff”, which seems almost antiquated (and irrelevant, as the quantity and quality of guitarists increases, as the divisions between rock and jazz grow less distinct, as the average listener grows distant from actual musical competency and from the 12-tone scale), perhaps out of fear that all the good riffs have already been used, or the fear that there is no such thing as a good riff, or perhaps out of the ease (and trendiness) of using automated arpeggiators instead of intentionally crafting a melodic figure. In any case, the point is Ben isn’t afraid of the Big Bad Riff, and with good reason: his are distinctive without being self-consciously poppy or hopelessly esoteric; they’re organic without being sloppy or noodly; they’re syncopated without feeling stilted or artificial or intentionally anti-pop. In short, they get the job done, and on top of that they sound like they’re damn fun to play. I like how it does the opposite of “Gardenhead/Leave Me Alone” by going from “cheerful” to “evil” instead of the other way around. And those “void”s at the end are truly something else. And I hope they didn’t take your appendix out with a coathanger.
10. Fish and Lobster (Rosalind): I guess I haven’t studied the source photograph very carefully, but most fish do in fact have heads. Also for some reason it’s really cute when you change tempo and start tapping your foot in 3-3-2s. And a little bit ironic that when you’re singing “you can sing on every note and word with me” you’re singing some pretty tough stuff, so I doubt too many people, let alone fish or lobsters, could really sing along nearly as well as you do. But I guess that’s what they get since they never let poor Rosalind join in any reindeer games. The subtonic on “FOR one thing” (and “IN their aqua PLAYing pen”?) is really sneaky and fun, especially as the 9 of the relative minor when the piano comes in; and those chromatic changes in the piano definitely add to the spirit of whimsy. You should use more chromatic changes. I think this may be my only advice for your music ever. Ooh, and changes like the ones in the bridge in “He”. Is the keyboard supposed to be the chessboard you built instead? And for the record (lol?), you were totally on when you re-played the note at the beginning. Ok, sorry this review is so disjointed and random and fragmentary. I’ve been writing these things on and off for like two weeks straight.
11. Fjord (Parker & me): I couldn’t be happier. Parker, this may be the best I’ve ever heard you sing. And that solo would make Syd Barrett jealous. Every time I sit down to write a song now, I think about how natural it felt to write this… basically what I’m trying to say is that we should write more songs together. As far as the “not really an arch” structure, I think it’s appropriate, given the water cycle references, it returns somewhat unexpectedly to where it starts only after completing a full circuit (from the bike ride along the edge of the fjord, falling into the tidepools of temptation, swimming to the archipelagos and the aurora, then being sucked up into the weird evaporating ascent/descent of Bridge pt. 1, to the rumbling storm of Bridge pt. 2, cascading back down in Bridge pt. 3 under the original chord changes to the start, but of course it’s a separate start, a da capo with a difference). With so much going on, especially in the A-section reprise at the end, it sounds surprisingly uncluttered, so thanks to Butch (and whoever designed Grant) for that. And I lied a little bit: I could be happier, maybe if we spent a little more time with the drum sounds to make them sound less digital and to pick the samples that would work best in the hall. Also I think I was too preoccupied with how cool it would be to switch back and forth from the Bechstein to the keyboard that I forgot to play a good solo. It might have been decent if I threw in a big fat glissando at the end. But hopefully Parker’s guitar pickup shift is a good enough distraction that nobody noticed (thanks Ben for that advice!). And I’ve never been totally sure about that line “and rape the archipelagos” – maybe just because my mom grew up on an archipelago that was effectively raped by the Dutch. But apart from that, this song is definitely one of my favorite things that came out of this semester.
12. Neverland (Me and Jeremy): Apart from cranking up the tempo before the second verse (to a speed at which, as I soon discovered, I couldn’t really fit all the words in), I think this went fairly well, certainly miles better than when I first played it in class. It could maybe use a drum set. Jeremy, your playing was great (I especially like the volume swells in the choruses, and the variation in the melody fill between the 2nd and 3rd verses, and the funky scale stuff @ “rhythm or melody/ passion or jealousy/ meaning or memory”, and pretty much every note you play after that is exactly what I would have imagined if I were as good a guitarist as you); I only wish I could hear the guitar more in the mix. Butch mentioned that the d#min7 (or I guess it’s more of a d#min9) in the minor part of the verse (“All because one cold September morning” etc) was not a particularly clean harmonic move – that’s also the point at which the key signature changes from more-or-less F#Mixolydian to kinda-sorta C#Ionian – so I wonder how that ended up sounding, especially with the guitar filling it out, because I am certainly not in a position to judge. I also wonder if the whole outro section (“If I had just one day to crawl out of the darkness”) is insufficiently unified with the rest of the song, which has a very straightforward, very repetitious structure, compared to the outro which is basically a mini-through-composed ditty. Of course “It hasn’t been white in winter for awhile” isn’t really true anymore, as of last December. Also, what is that clapping sound after “Could we send a rocket to the moon?”
13. Hotline (Again?!?!) (Roman & Ian): Props for starting with “It doesn’t matter anyway/ I’ve said more than I meant to say.” Is the spoken bit “part of the song”, or particular to this performance? Either way I like it, especially the “odd desire to fail,” which is reminiscent of Milan Kundera’s definition of vertigo as “something other than the fear of falling. It is the voice of the emptiness below us which tempts and lures us, it is the desire to fall, against which, terrified, we defend ourselves.” Like in “Good St. George,” it is often unclear who is talking, whom the pronouns refer to – is Mr. Hotline singing? How could he – he’s dead! Or Roman (@ the first line, “I have seen the shit of earth”; and again @ the last stanza, “I won’t miss him…/ I still loved him…/ I’m just like him. Tell, do I deserve the same?”)? Or are these some of the “townsfolk”? Either way it’s ambiguous, and I dig it. (Perhaps a better question is, who is the “you” in “you don’t look much better/ …you look slightly deader”?) In fact I think I have decided this semester that a judicious juxtaposition of first- and third-person songwriting (with perhaps a pinch of second here and there, if only because the syllable “you” is eminently singable) is generally preferable to all-first-person (because nobody really gives a shit about anybody else's feelings) or all-third (because songwriting is inherently personal, and because it’s fun to write songs “in character”, which are technically first-person but obviously in aren’t the singer’s voice). Before you sent me the lyrics, I assumed “to God. A bug” was “to God above”… lolz. The “bug” thing is definitely unexpected, and continues the whole “I’m writing Kafka” motif from Hotline Pt I., as well as the dehumanization of Mr. Hotline. It’s also really impressive how you found so many great melodies to go over the same chords (and changing the time signature and adding the 7th-beat “hiccup”, a la "All You Need Is Love" [even if you don't listen to the Beatles] probably didn't hurt)… so phenomenal work, you definitely succeeded in making it a totally different song from Pt. I. As far as “Glad he won’t disgrace us with his eyes”, which you missed in the performance but included in your “corrected” lyrics, I think the “fuck” in the next line is actually more effective without the half-line before it, especially because immediately after that you head straight into another section. And “lost to pretty girls” – I almost want this line to change, if only because up to this point, there has only been one passing reference to sexuality (“he’ll never see the dark of life again/ Never see another highway light, another tree or pretty woman’s thigh”) , and thus the whole song has a really dark and amorphous quality of being about punishment and loss and pain and queasiness and retribution, while completely avoiding what the source of that pain or loss might be (except in Pt. I of course), so throwing in “lost to pretty girls” right before the end feels almost like a concession, especially because 1) it’s lyrically inconsistent with the rest of the song, and 2) it’s phonetically inconsistent with the rest of the stanza (i.e. it doesn’t rhyme whereas everything else in that melodic pattern rhymes in couplets). But I think you already know my attitude towards songs about ex-lovers. But maybe it’s just been too long since I’ve had a good ex-lover to write a song about. Whoa, it got personal for a second. Ok. Point is I like the song a lot.
14. Worry Away (Julie, Katherine, Rosalind, Sara, Parker & Ben): As you wrote in your blog, your emulation of “In the Waiting Line”'s structural elements is spot on, down to the repetition of the first couplet of the chorus at the end of the chorus. But the instrumentation (thanks to Parker and Ben's gritty, groovy counterpoint) and your tasteful vocal ornamentation are sufficiently distinctive to make your song unique. I love the “take me to higher ground” at the end of the first verse – you go to higher ground, but then the vocals cut out, leaving the listener in expectant suspense, waiting for the next phrase. And “til somebody drops” proves my earlier point about the minor 2nds. Parker, you have a knack for throwing in chordal accents after crucial lyrical lines, here as in “It Rains in His Heart.” The Zero 7 song plays extensively with the “waiting” aspect (i.e. repetitious chord progression, ambient sounds, lyrical content), but the singer sometimes changes it up, especially rhythmically, as in “ticking clock/ everyone stop”, in which the vocal rhythm changes from a floaty, spaced-out, syncopated rhythm (somewhere between a 3-3-2 and quarter-note triplets) to stilted straight eighths. You play with listeners' rhythmic expectations in a similar way with lines like “All the while the hours slip away” (with “away” sneaking in just before the bar line, breaking the strong pattern of quarter-note offbeats; thus the words “slip away” just like the hours) and of course that line “My love is unlimited,/ but time is prohibiting me/ from seeing all that there is to see” which combines a spectacular melody, a couple of tricky multisyllabic/interlocking rhymes, and some very clever enjambment across barlines.
15. O Holy Night (Josh & Butch): Beautiful work, both of you. Although I do wish there had been just a pinch of klezmer clarinet action... I'm sure there was klezmer music on the night Jesus was born. Josh, it's a good thing you didn't forget the words, otherwise we might have had to do this.
16. All Ye Shackled Men (Everyone): Some of us started off counting the snaps on 1 and 3, and then they gradually phased to 2 and 4 before Josh's vocals came in. Pretty cool, even if it was essentially serendipitous. On the whole this sounds good in spite of minimal rehearsal, and it's certainly come a long way since Josh's original solo guitar version with hushed vocals, by way of out-of-tune-organ-plus-screaming-lessons. Josh, I'm honored to have been a small part of the writing process, even if the only similarity between our jamming and the final product is the key signature. Somebody stomped solo after the first four measures, which I assume was a goof-up (although assuming usually makes an ass out of me), but it actually works nicely to foreshadow the bigger stomp after measure 8. If we'd had more time to rehearse, it would probably have been nice to have more harmonies going; as it was, a handful of us were improvising, but it could definitely be tighter. My only other criticism is that you dropped my favorite verse.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Midterm Review
1. "Rocking Chair" (Roman): A propulsive opener. Deliciously ironic that you forgot the line "I was the best of all good people" or whatever it is. As always, excellent use of dramatic dynamic contrast throughout in both vocals and guitar work. As Katherine mentioned, however, it may sometimes prove useful to subvert the dynamic paradigm; keep in mind that reservation can be as effective, and even more affecting, than no-holds-barred punk rawkage. I think the "accidental" walk-away-from-the-mic is phenomenal. For one thing it reproduces something on the recording in sound that occurred in the concert visually; that is, sustained rhythmic and musical energy but with a diversion of the audience's focus that truly lives up to the song's title. Beware, however, of rocking out too much in your head -- while you can hear the backing band, all we get is the heartfelt-but-naked strumming; here's another instance of how reservation could benefit the performance, especially given the limited arrangement of this song.
2. "Small Things" (Ben): A relatively laid-back yet earnestly melancholy follow-up. As someone who has covered dozens of Blink-182 songs, I appreciate how much your cover simultaneously respects the original (by retaining all of the original lyrics, which, as you pointed out, are actually pretty good) and departs from it without resorting to cliche or parody (of which many Blink-182 covers, my own especially included, are guilty). I only wish I had enough distance from the original to assess the cover completely out of context. That last chord, I don't know what it is, IV-sus-something, is beautiful.
3. "Sally" (Julie, Josh, Rosalind): This is one of my favorite songs of the semester because of the way it effortlessly combines (1) a painfully simple chord progression, (2) sinister-but-playful lyrics, (3) an archetypal blues melody that succeeds in being catchy and nontrivial, (4) wanton musical wankery (double-be-bop-whistling solo break!?), and (5) a totally traditional song structure that, perhaps owing to the sparse instrumentation (which, of course, Josh's bass-notes helped fill out) and the beautiful, disturbing, memorable lyrics, conveys a myth-like narrative without succumbing to boredom or banality. The soli section could of course be tighter -- soli sections can always be tighter -- it might be interesting to hear alternating, instead of simultaneous, solos; the bridge would also be a perfect opportunity to expand the musical arrangement, adding perhaps percussive or electronic sounds to augment the oneiric atmosphere. Somehow the ritard at the end, which I feared had been left insufficiently rehearsed, came out perfectly, an impressively dark and expansive end (props to Josh for ending on the dominant) to a short and simple song.
4. "Sing to Me" (Josh): I'm sorry, I love you Josh, but this song is boring. I wish you would've played the other one, it was a little more colorful (pun intended), a little more surprising, a little more varied. Maybe I just can't take love songs seriously anymore. I mean, the performance itself is perfect; you didn't rush a single beat, and it's always impressive to hear two instruments being played at once (guitar & harmonica, or guitar & voice for that matter). And I love the foot-taps; they're so honest, kind of like the metronome in "Blackbird." I'm just not crazy about the song; it's a little too regular, a little too straightforward -- except for that one line: "I have seen the world's decay/ I know that all things born must be dyin'."
5. "Valley Bridge" (Parker): The lyrics to this song are essentially perfect -- too many great lines to name -- although I must admit the bit about "pheromones" always struck me as a bit forced, especially since the rest is so relatively plainspoken and unscientific. But lines like "Despite her quite inviting smile" and "I drive all kinds of shapes around the great northeast" and of course "Some people blame the moon when all the waters move/ but I'm just blaming you" more than make up for it. You could have held onto that last chord a second longer, but I know it takes a hell of a lot of composure to stand there silently after the song is over and the trance of performance has passed. I know you're a better guitarist than this recording gives you credit for, so I almost wish you'd done something more interesting with the accompaniment, although the 3-2-3 bit in the verse pattern is really catchy; and on second thought, this might have detracted from the lyrics, which of course are the best part. You might consider playing this song a little lower in the future, because you're obviously pushing the top of your range in this key, but the lower bits sound much more comfortable and natural. Then again, it's an interesting effect to start each line way up in the outer reaches and bring it down to the ground, especially since the chorus stays low and even plays on the "up" directional motif; this works particularly well in the last verse, when you shoot from "well I" an octave up to "drive all kinds of shapes," which perfectly illustrates the lyrical suggestion of being desperately lost and out of one's element.
6. "My Madness" (Rosalind & Julie): This is maybe the only song since "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" that can pull off the line "I want you." But I stand by my statement: you should've gone all-out gospel in the outro, it would have been awesome. Maybe I'll just have to pull a Joe Cocker and gospelize it in a cover. Of course it was awesome nonetheless; this is one of my favorite Schonwald songs of all time, which is really saying something. I don't know how you sing those off-rhythms (esp "My thoughts, though wild, at least are free") while playing the chords off the beat as well. The bit in the bridge where you sing "I'll come find you" and then find the chord is also really awesome and hilarious, if unintentional.
7. "Astral Companion" (Jeremy & me): This is certainly one of the most impressive songs written all year, in light of the almost-comically-almost-obscenely-demanding restrictions on your writing process (only 3 inanimate nouns, none of which can be personified). It's a legitimately catchy song, and yet it has all the unsettling otherworldliness we've come to expect from your original musical sensibilities. "Radio cannot be controlled" pretty much sums it up. Sorry for screwing up the timing on the arpeggios -- but at least we nailed the ending, for, like, the first time ever! It probably would have been more badass with the organ, but alas, it's hard to move an organ. I'm kind of surprised you didn't whip out your pedal-board for this number, since it seems like it would lend itself well to some judiciously spacey effects.
8. "Jenny and the Ghost" (Me): There are so many parts in this song that I don't think I've ever played the whole thing through to complete satisfaction. Parts that went well in this performance: the beginning (except the first note), especially the serendipitous screwup on "I give a shout"; the piano bit following "off to sleep," which wasn't perfect but also wasn't as messy as I was afraid it was going to be; and the very end, from "she couldn't take much more" to "gone." Parts that could have been better: all of the piano, esp the bit following the second "what about what you can only feel?", the "constant rolling waves and howling wind," and "the silky silver rivulets of moonlight"; remembering all the words ("quivered, shivered, quaked" and "her bed began to shake, her head began to ache, her bones would surely break" -- this part in particular is really crucial to tying the spoken/rubato section, "Faster than her fears could comprehend" through "She couldn't take much more," together with the final tonal/a tempo section; unfortunately I pretty much failed to do that in this performance); enunciation on terminal consonants, as Katherine noted; and consistency of tempo throughout. I also definitely need to work on my left hand, because playing octaves and fifths all the time gets really boring, not to mention muddy.
9. "Grow" (Rosalind & Ben): OK, Katherine always said it was impressive how you two found each other in the beginning here, but I must respectfully disagree. It's actually kind of sloppy and very difficult to tell where, if anywhere, the beat is, or who, if anyone, is in charge. I only say this because I respect both of you immensely as musicians, and expect better. Or maybe I just can't make my ear groove to what you're doing. That aside, once you get into it (by "into expansive [expensive?] unknown scary places"), it's undeniably golden. I love how the tinkly arpeggios sit on top of Ben's rhythm guitar playing, which is like Ringo's drumming: simple, understated, and practically impossible to improve upon, esp in parts like "into the sunbeams" and "go far, forget the way back homeward." But by the end it falls apart again a little bit -- maybe Rosalind is taking a few too many liberties with tempo, which is fine when she plays by herself but not so much with a guitarist.
10. "Citalopram" (Ben): This is a really clever song lyrically, and also impressive with the vocals going in and out of quarter-note-triplets. The "stuttering stuttering" bit cracks me up everytime, and it's also cool how you go ever so slightly out of time here. That said, there are a few lines that really puzzle me -- "Colorful marks on the ankles" and "Murder, murder, sing" -- and for such a short song, it's surprising how disjointed it seems, at least lyrically. But this fragmented minimalism is trademark Ben and I can only suppose that it makes some sort of sense in his head. The ending is priceless, especially since it lingers on I and then resolves to -- what?? an implied VII chord???
11. "Dawn's Broken Crutch" (Josh): This song does everything that "Sing to Me" does, and does it better, and does more besides. It's true that the lyrics are repetitive structurally and melodically -- but not lyrically, not at all; and the standard blues turn of Protasis-Protasis-Apodosis is itself turned inside out in your expanded-stanza-that-somewhat-nonsensically-subverts-itself ("I long to hear the snow fall in the morning/ And I long to hear the snow fall in the night/ And I long to hear the snow fall, but the sound is much too white/ In the morning and in the night") which may, upon reflection, turn out to be the ideal quatrain form. And your whistling is impeccable; if only the recording could do justice to the way that humble column of air fills up the hall!
12. "Me and You" (Julie, Ben & me): I thought this song was kind of haphazard and strange before I read Julie's post about it and learned how thoroughly composed it actually is (the way "The whole world's a better place when it's upside-down" worked out is awesome). I wonder, though, if it would be possible to write the song such that it does not require multiple listenings or a comprehensive explication to "get it," because in spite of the groove (or maybe because of it -- if I'd had a drum set I probably could have more successfully differentiated the various sections of the song, but alas...) it must have been difficult for the audience to really follow the song in the same painstaking and rigorous sense that it was written. But either way it was hella fun to play on, and boy! that Ben can lay down a groove. And thanks to Butch's masterful mixing, this recording, in spite of the relatively full arrangement, also showcases Julie's vocal control -- check out the microtones on "sweet aBOUT me" and "sing aLONG" and "all aLONE." Dig it.
13. "Stays the Same" (Jeremy): Although "Wild Thing" got all the attention, I think this is some of Jeremy's best guitar work this semester. The combination of solid bass figures, suspended chords with upper structures that "stay the same," and hidden lead lines that mirror and support the vocals, works to tie this complex song together into a particular tonality that perfectly captures the strained, heartwrenching yearning of your vocals. In other words, in spite of its nontraditional structure (does it have a chorus? "I wish I could perform for you/ but anxiety gets in the way/ When I see you the next day/ We'll pretend everything stays the same" certainly sounds like one, verbally and melodically, but when the melody repeats the words are tweaked. WHOA! I like it), it doesn't come across like a "frankensong" at all. The bridge is really outstanding in every way, so I won't spoil it by talking about it. The line about "never heard laughter/ til I heard it come from you" is a bit weak, especially given its position at the top of the second verse (is that a verse? it sounds like a verse), which really demands a winner. The rest of the lyrics, though, are as winning as they are geniune ("There's a lot of depth we cannot see/ Two of us lying side-by-side and/ I can see the symmetry/ Everything stays the same"); you have a real knack for matching general intensity of performance to your melodic gestures and lyrical content.
14. "He" (Rosalind & her G-Unit): This was so much fun! But I feel like this could be part of a much larger, more lyrically-elaborate song or even suite of songs. There's so much evocative atmospheric musical nonsense going on that it's hard to get a sense of exactly who "He" is -- although, knowing Rosalind, that's probably the point. But I'm curious. Why does the sun fear him? Surely not because of the scissors, regardless of how sharp (or shark) they may be. But come to that, why does he have scissors anyway? Is he one of the Three Weird Sisters in disguise, ready to cut our lifethreads short? Is he Seamus Taylor's tailor, ready to cut a fabulous new blouse or an awful length of rope? Whatever those changes are in the bridge, they're stellar. As my piano teacher would say, "Now you're playing out where the buses don't run!" Let's add some animal noises next time.
15. "Arizona" (Parker & Julie): Everything about this song is awesome.
16. "I'll Roll Back to You" (Ben, Josh & me): Ben's lyrics and melody are immensely fun to sing, even if the subject is rather gruesome. I think still we could do a lot more with this song, especially considering all the tricks up Ben's electric sleeve, but the arrangement was simple and effective. There was a bit of miscommunication about the "jump" in the second verse, but I think we pulled it off without total disaster. Ditto "tone" in the bridge, which was supposed to be "in softer tones"... ah, next time. Not sure what's going on in "Thrown AWAY the traces and the prints"... I guess I was throwing away the key, hah. It is a bit high for me generally, so I guess I just have to work on switching more convincingly to and from falsetto. If I may say so, I did a good job of staying off the pedal, which is a chronic problem of mine and a real nuisance when playing with anyone other than myself. I'm still disappointed I couldn't get myself to whistle this one properly, but Josh did a great job as always, totally capturing the spirit of what I imagine a love-crazed maniac might whistle to himself while wiping his hands of "freshly-sifted earth." I'm also not totally sure that the octave on the last chorus was the best harmonic choice, but it was probably the easiest, if not always the most accurate. Katherine always brings up the differences between Ben's and my phrasing of his lyrics, for which I'm listening intently for the umpteenth time... you'll have to show me what you mean.
17. "Tribute (A Beautiful Table for Beautiful People)" (Roman, Katherine, Josh & me): A failure in the best possible sense -- in the sense that William Faulkner called The Sound and the Fury a failure and in the sense that I proudly call "The Nine Deaths of Ugly the Cat" a failure -- that is, an instance of an artist pushing his own limits so far that he bumps up against them, rattles his saber against them in frustration and anguish, reaches occasionally marvelous new heights of experimentation but ultimately fails to render a perfect and consistent and masterful whole; an instance of an artist truly shooting for the moon and landing, somewhat disappointedly, amongst the stars. There are great moments, to be sure -- "We drove aimlessly; stopped and explored the nooks of Corpus Christi, Texas; snuck into that hotel and rolled down the hallways on luggage carts" and "You picked me up, back when you weren't asking for gas money" and the entirety of Part Three and many more besides -- but just as many moments that fall flat ("Been hanging out at various places through the city" and "Fail." and "I broke up with her" and many more besides). Of course, given the "social experiment" nature of your performance (which introduction I found a bit overblown, especially with its comparisons to the Beats -- that's a pretty high standard to set for yourself, and your audience, before you perform!), it's entirely likely that each moment at which I cringed was a poetic gem for someone else in the audience, and vice versa. I felt the funny bits didn't get the laughs they deserved, probably mostly due to your rushed delivery, although you did vastly improve the speed since your first performance in class. P.S. Don't let this get you down -- I really do mean it's a failure in the best possible sense. And when the final concert recordings come out, I guarantee you will like the reviews I write of "Good St. George" and "Hotline Pt. II." If you'd like to continue debating the relative merits of honesty versus palatability or whatever, feel free to comment; nothing gets me going like a good debate. We had lots of great discussions in our Monday sections, but very few that I would call "good debates."
17. "Pockets" (Josh): What is it about a short song that is so inherently funny? Is it the idea that even miniscule cotidian events are deserving of, and capable of, translation (and thus immortalization) into music? Or the short-song's implicit statement that longer forms of songs, with their repetition and elaboration, are deceptive and/or melodramatic in their forced-correspondence between text and music that, as both increase in length, itself increases in scale to unbelievable and therefore comic proportions? Either way, Garcia's masterpiece is an unrivalled example of the power of song to at once condense and expand narrative (by its evocation of mood, of atmosphere and setting, of the passage of time); to unify disparate narrative and philosophical elements into a coherent and satisfying whole, rendered all the more satisfying by its simple, almost primal chord changes: I-V, I-V, I-V-I-IV, I-V-I. This harmonic structure successfully portrays the ambling, andante motion of the four Italian boys, with their left-right, left-right corresponding to the I-V, I-V. The opening lines, "Let's all walk with our hands in our pockets/ Me like him like you" recalls the Beatles' "I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together," establishing an equivalence between Garcia and the "four Italian boys," whose identities are never revealed and thus take on a Kafkaesque archetypal quality; the fundamental "oneness" of the song, however, also complicates the appearance of Roman Gonzalez, whose brief appearance assumes an air of ineffable significance if only because of its very briefness; if he were not a crucial element of the song-story, why would he be included at all? This briefness-which-comments-upon-its-own-significance may in fact be related to the idea of the short-song, whose very existence is in some ways proof of significance. In any case, Gonzalez "turned right [when Garcia] turned left." If Gonzalez and Garcia in fact turned in opposite directions, how can we "all walk with our hands in our pockets/ Me like him like you"? The knee-jerk reaction is to assume that Garcia and Gonzalez are in fact the same character, much like Samuel Beckett's Molloy and Moran. But a further extension of the analogy, though precarious, may yield rewards: Garcia is performing this song for an audience, and, as the final song of the evening, no doubt strives to create an artificial sense of unity for the audience and the evening's performers, so as to leave the concert on "a good note" (pun intended). Thus the line "Me like him like you" might be translated as "Garcia like the rest of the performers like the audience," whereby the unification of artist and audience is admirably accomplished. With "Where's my watch at?" Garcia subtly subverts himself, calling attention to the fact that the audience is in fact a captive audience, and that they have indeed been sitting in the same room for some time. This elicits a laugh, on the surface because of the comical pseudogrammar of the lyrics; but upon further consideration, the audience appears to laugh at their own foolishness, at their gullibility in allowing themselves to waste an evening listening to eight young students sing seventeen silly songs. But Garcia, ever the master of his medium, quickly averts the audience's attention before they have time to resent him or the other performers by bringing up the larger philosophical themes for which his work is frequently praised. Upon the mention of God, Josh craftily inserts a IV chord, which immediately calls to mind the liturgical associations of this chord in the infamous "Amen" cadence. He also momentarily suspends the harmonic motion here, lingering divinely on the IV, robbing the listener of the previous illusion of movement (and calling attention to its constructedness as a psychoacoustic phenomenon based solely on the listener's acculturation into Western classical and popular music, whose composers and audiences have always assumed the equivalence, as obsessive as it is arbitrary, of musical time with actual time) in perfect conjunction with the line, "I can't even tell the time." This artful yet subtle play is mirrored in Josh's characteristic singing, rhythmically out-of-time in relation to its accompaniment, at whose many levels of meaning we can only speculate: Does he consider himself "out of step" with the Italian boys, their hair slicked uniformly back in comparison with his unruly curls? Is this his wholehearted attempt to dissociate once and for all the independent musical concepts of rhythm and melody, whose intimate relation throughout the history of Western classical and popular music has been as obsessive and as arbitrary as that of musical time with actual time? Regardless, Garcia moves seamlessly away from this unanswered question, which he gives the illusion of answering by means of the decisive harmonic motion back to the I-V of the exposition. With this return, he couples a recapitulation of the original theme, that is, the oneness of all things: "With our hands in our pockets/ Like yours, like mine." The "him" of the original line ("Me like you like him") has now disappeared, ostensibly because Garcia assumes, or wishes to lead the audience to believe, that his performance, in its finality and in its cool dismissiveness of all the musical tropes and tricks employed by his colleagues throughout the rest of the concert, somehow eclipses the other performers. And yet if all things are one, this hardly matters; so long as we all have our hands in our pockets, Garcia claims, we are equal in the eyes of God and in the hands of Time, whether musical or otherwise. The irony, of course, is that Garcia's hands are in fact out of his pockets; otherwise, how could he play his guitar? Thus the final image of the concert is one of malicious humor: the audience, thinking they are laughing at Garcia, but in fact laughing at themselves for their willingness to subject themselves to the coercive demands of the performers; the seven other students, shifting uncomfortably in their seats as Garcia effectively sings them out of existence; and the sinister Garcia himself, hiding his hubris behind the veneer of laughter. Our only consolation may be that God himself laughs similarly at Garcia.
2. "Small Things" (Ben): A relatively laid-back yet earnestly melancholy follow-up. As someone who has covered dozens of Blink-182 songs, I appreciate how much your cover simultaneously respects the original (by retaining all of the original lyrics, which, as you pointed out, are actually pretty good) and departs from it without resorting to cliche or parody (of which many Blink-182 covers, my own especially included, are guilty). I only wish I had enough distance from the original to assess the cover completely out of context. That last chord, I don't know what it is, IV-sus-something, is beautiful.
3. "Sally" (Julie, Josh, Rosalind): This is one of my favorite songs of the semester because of the way it effortlessly combines (1) a painfully simple chord progression, (2) sinister-but-playful lyrics, (3) an archetypal blues melody that succeeds in being catchy and nontrivial, (4) wanton musical wankery (double-be-bop-whistling solo break!?), and (5) a totally traditional song structure that, perhaps owing to the sparse instrumentation (which, of course, Josh's bass-notes helped fill out) and the beautiful, disturbing, memorable lyrics, conveys a myth-like narrative without succumbing to boredom or banality. The soli section could of course be tighter -- soli sections can always be tighter -- it might be interesting to hear alternating, instead of simultaneous, solos; the bridge would also be a perfect opportunity to expand the musical arrangement, adding perhaps percussive or electronic sounds to augment the oneiric atmosphere. Somehow the ritard at the end, which I feared had been left insufficiently rehearsed, came out perfectly, an impressively dark and expansive end (props to Josh for ending on the dominant) to a short and simple song.
4. "Sing to Me" (Josh): I'm sorry, I love you Josh, but this song is boring. I wish you would've played the other one, it was a little more colorful (pun intended), a little more surprising, a little more varied. Maybe I just can't take love songs seriously anymore. I mean, the performance itself is perfect; you didn't rush a single beat, and it's always impressive to hear two instruments being played at once (guitar & harmonica, or guitar & voice for that matter). And I love the foot-taps; they're so honest, kind of like the metronome in "Blackbird." I'm just not crazy about the song; it's a little too regular, a little too straightforward -- except for that one line: "I have seen the world's decay/ I know that all things born must be dyin'."
5. "Valley Bridge" (Parker): The lyrics to this song are essentially perfect -- too many great lines to name -- although I must admit the bit about "pheromones" always struck me as a bit forced, especially since the rest is so relatively plainspoken and unscientific. But lines like "Despite her quite inviting smile" and "I drive all kinds of shapes around the great northeast" and of course "Some people blame the moon when all the waters move/ but I'm just blaming you" more than make up for it. You could have held onto that last chord a second longer, but I know it takes a hell of a lot of composure to stand there silently after the song is over and the trance of performance has passed. I know you're a better guitarist than this recording gives you credit for, so I almost wish you'd done something more interesting with the accompaniment, although the 3-2-3 bit in the verse pattern is really catchy; and on second thought, this might have detracted from the lyrics, which of course are the best part. You might consider playing this song a little lower in the future, because you're obviously pushing the top of your range in this key, but the lower bits sound much more comfortable and natural. Then again, it's an interesting effect to start each line way up in the outer reaches and bring it down to the ground, especially since the chorus stays low and even plays on the "up" directional motif; this works particularly well in the last verse, when you shoot from "well I" an octave up to "drive all kinds of shapes," which perfectly illustrates the lyrical suggestion of being desperately lost and out of one's element.
6. "My Madness" (Rosalind & Julie): This is maybe the only song since "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" that can pull off the line "I want you." But I stand by my statement: you should've gone all-out gospel in the outro, it would have been awesome. Maybe I'll just have to pull a Joe Cocker and gospelize it in a cover. Of course it was awesome nonetheless; this is one of my favorite Schonwald songs of all time, which is really saying something. I don't know how you sing those off-rhythms (esp "My thoughts, though wild, at least are free") while playing the chords off the beat as well. The bit in the bridge where you sing "I'll come find you" and then find the chord is also really awesome and hilarious, if unintentional.
7. "Astral Companion" (Jeremy & me): This is certainly one of the most impressive songs written all year, in light of the almost-comically-almost-obscenely-demanding restrictions on your writing process (only 3 inanimate nouns, none of which can be personified). It's a legitimately catchy song, and yet it has all the unsettling otherworldliness we've come to expect from your original musical sensibilities. "Radio cannot be controlled" pretty much sums it up. Sorry for screwing up the timing on the arpeggios -- but at least we nailed the ending, for, like, the first time ever! It probably would have been more badass with the organ, but alas, it's hard to move an organ. I'm kind of surprised you didn't whip out your pedal-board for this number, since it seems like it would lend itself well to some judiciously spacey effects.
8. "Jenny and the Ghost" (Me): There are so many parts in this song that I don't think I've ever played the whole thing through to complete satisfaction. Parts that went well in this performance: the beginning (except the first note), especially the serendipitous screwup on "I give a shout"; the piano bit following "off to sleep," which wasn't perfect but also wasn't as messy as I was afraid it was going to be; and the very end, from "she couldn't take much more" to "gone." Parts that could have been better: all of the piano, esp the bit following the second "what about what you can only feel?", the "constant rolling waves and howling wind," and "the silky silver rivulets of moonlight"; remembering all the words ("quivered, shivered, quaked" and "her bed began to shake, her head began to ache, her bones would surely break" -- this part in particular is really crucial to tying the spoken/rubato section, "Faster than her fears could comprehend" through "She couldn't take much more," together with the final tonal/a tempo section; unfortunately I pretty much failed to do that in this performance); enunciation on terminal consonants, as Katherine noted; and consistency of tempo throughout. I also definitely need to work on my left hand, because playing octaves and fifths all the time gets really boring, not to mention muddy.
9. "Grow" (Rosalind & Ben): OK, Katherine always said it was impressive how you two found each other in the beginning here, but I must respectfully disagree. It's actually kind of sloppy and very difficult to tell where, if anywhere, the beat is, or who, if anyone, is in charge. I only say this because I respect both of you immensely as musicians, and expect better. Or maybe I just can't make my ear groove to what you're doing. That aside, once you get into it (by "into expansive [expensive?] unknown scary places"), it's undeniably golden. I love how the tinkly arpeggios sit on top of Ben's rhythm guitar playing, which is like Ringo's drumming: simple, understated, and practically impossible to improve upon, esp in parts like "into the sunbeams" and "go far, forget the way back homeward." But by the end it falls apart again a little bit -- maybe Rosalind is taking a few too many liberties with tempo, which is fine when she plays by herself but not so much with a guitarist.
10. "Citalopram" (Ben): This is a really clever song lyrically, and also impressive with the vocals going in and out of quarter-note-triplets. The "stuttering stuttering" bit cracks me up everytime, and it's also cool how you go ever so slightly out of time here. That said, there are a few lines that really puzzle me -- "Colorful marks on the ankles" and "Murder, murder, sing" -- and for such a short song, it's surprising how disjointed it seems, at least lyrically. But this fragmented minimalism is trademark Ben and I can only suppose that it makes some sort of sense in his head. The ending is priceless, especially since it lingers on I and then resolves to -- what?? an implied VII chord???
11. "Dawn's Broken Crutch" (Josh): This song does everything that "Sing to Me" does, and does it better, and does more besides. It's true that the lyrics are repetitive structurally and melodically -- but not lyrically, not at all; and the standard blues turn of Protasis-Protasis-Apodosis is itself turned inside out in your expanded-stanza-that-somewhat-nonsensically-subverts-itself ("I long to hear the snow fall in the morning/ And I long to hear the snow fall in the night/ And I long to hear the snow fall, but the sound is much too white/ In the morning and in the night") which may, upon reflection, turn out to be the ideal quatrain form. And your whistling is impeccable; if only the recording could do justice to the way that humble column of air fills up the hall!
12. "Me and You" (Julie, Ben & me): I thought this song was kind of haphazard and strange before I read Julie's post about it and learned how thoroughly composed it actually is (the way "The whole world's a better place when it's upside-down" worked out is awesome). I wonder, though, if it would be possible to write the song such that it does not require multiple listenings or a comprehensive explication to "get it," because in spite of the groove (or maybe because of it -- if I'd had a drum set I probably could have more successfully differentiated the various sections of the song, but alas...) it must have been difficult for the audience to really follow the song in the same painstaking and rigorous sense that it was written. But either way it was hella fun to play on, and boy! that Ben can lay down a groove. And thanks to Butch's masterful mixing, this recording, in spite of the relatively full arrangement, also showcases Julie's vocal control -- check out the microtones on "sweet aBOUT me" and "sing aLONG" and "all aLONE." Dig it.
13. "Stays the Same" (Jeremy): Although "Wild Thing" got all the attention, I think this is some of Jeremy's best guitar work this semester. The combination of solid bass figures, suspended chords with upper structures that "stay the same," and hidden lead lines that mirror and support the vocals, works to tie this complex song together into a particular tonality that perfectly captures the strained, heartwrenching yearning of your vocals. In other words, in spite of its nontraditional structure (does it have a chorus? "I wish I could perform for you/ but anxiety gets in the way/ When I see you the next day/ We'll pretend everything stays the same" certainly sounds like one, verbally and melodically, but when the melody repeats the words are tweaked. WHOA! I like it), it doesn't come across like a "frankensong" at all. The bridge is really outstanding in every way, so I won't spoil it by talking about it. The line about "never heard laughter/ til I heard it come from you" is a bit weak, especially given its position at the top of the second verse (is that a verse? it sounds like a verse), which really demands a winner. The rest of the lyrics, though, are as winning as they are geniune ("There's a lot of depth we cannot see/ Two of us lying side-by-side and/ I can see the symmetry/ Everything stays the same"); you have a real knack for matching general intensity of performance to your melodic gestures and lyrical content.
14. "He" (Rosalind & her G-Unit): This was so much fun! But I feel like this could be part of a much larger, more lyrically-elaborate song or even suite of songs. There's so much evocative atmospheric musical nonsense going on that it's hard to get a sense of exactly who "He" is -- although, knowing Rosalind, that's probably the point. But I'm curious. Why does the sun fear him? Surely not because of the scissors, regardless of how sharp (or shark) they may be. But come to that, why does he have scissors anyway? Is he one of the Three Weird Sisters in disguise, ready to cut our lifethreads short? Is he Seamus Taylor's tailor, ready to cut a fabulous new blouse or an awful length of rope? Whatever those changes are in the bridge, they're stellar. As my piano teacher would say, "Now you're playing out where the buses don't run!" Let's add some animal noises next time.
15. "Arizona" (Parker & Julie): Everything about this song is awesome.
16. "I'll Roll Back to You" (Ben, Josh & me): Ben's lyrics and melody are immensely fun to sing, even if the subject is rather gruesome. I think still we could do a lot more with this song, especially considering all the tricks up Ben's electric sleeve, but the arrangement was simple and effective. There was a bit of miscommunication about the "jump" in the second verse, but I think we pulled it off without total disaster. Ditto "tone" in the bridge, which was supposed to be "in softer tones"... ah, next time. Not sure what's going on in "Thrown AWAY the traces and the prints"... I guess I was throwing away the key, hah. It is a bit high for me generally, so I guess I just have to work on switching more convincingly to and from falsetto. If I may say so, I did a good job of staying off the pedal, which is a chronic problem of mine and a real nuisance when playing with anyone other than myself. I'm still disappointed I couldn't get myself to whistle this one properly, but Josh did a great job as always, totally capturing the spirit of what I imagine a love-crazed maniac might whistle to himself while wiping his hands of "freshly-sifted earth." I'm also not totally sure that the octave on the last chorus was the best harmonic choice, but it was probably the easiest, if not always the most accurate. Katherine always brings up the differences between Ben's and my phrasing of his lyrics, for which I'm listening intently for the umpteenth time... you'll have to show me what you mean.
17. "Tribute (A Beautiful Table for Beautiful People)" (Roman, Katherine, Josh & me): A failure in the best possible sense -- in the sense that William Faulkner called The Sound and the Fury a failure and in the sense that I proudly call "The Nine Deaths of Ugly the Cat" a failure -- that is, an instance of an artist pushing his own limits so far that he bumps up against them, rattles his saber against them in frustration and anguish, reaches occasionally marvelous new heights of experimentation but ultimately fails to render a perfect and consistent and masterful whole; an instance of an artist truly shooting for the moon and landing, somewhat disappointedly, amongst the stars. There are great moments, to be sure -- "We drove aimlessly; stopped and explored the nooks of Corpus Christi, Texas; snuck into that hotel and rolled down the hallways on luggage carts" and "You picked me up, back when you weren't asking for gas money" and the entirety of Part Three and many more besides -- but just as many moments that fall flat ("Been hanging out at various places through the city" and "Fail." and "I broke up with her" and many more besides). Of course, given the "social experiment" nature of your performance (which introduction I found a bit overblown, especially with its comparisons to the Beats -- that's a pretty high standard to set for yourself, and your audience, before you perform!), it's entirely likely that each moment at which I cringed was a poetic gem for someone else in the audience, and vice versa. I felt the funny bits didn't get the laughs they deserved, probably mostly due to your rushed delivery, although you did vastly improve the speed since your first performance in class. P.S. Don't let this get you down -- I really do mean it's a failure in the best possible sense. And when the final concert recordings come out, I guarantee you will like the reviews I write of "Good St. George" and "Hotline Pt. II." If you'd like to continue debating the relative merits of honesty versus palatability or whatever, feel free to comment; nothing gets me going like a good debate. We had lots of great discussions in our Monday sections, but very few that I would call "good debates."
17. "Pockets" (Josh): What is it about a short song that is so inherently funny? Is it the idea that even miniscule cotidian events are deserving of, and capable of, translation (and thus immortalization) into music? Or the short-song's implicit statement that longer forms of songs, with their repetition and elaboration, are deceptive and/or melodramatic in their forced-correspondence between text and music that, as both increase in length, itself increases in scale to unbelievable and therefore comic proportions? Either way, Garcia's masterpiece is an unrivalled example of the power of song to at once condense and expand narrative (by its evocation of mood, of atmosphere and setting, of the passage of time); to unify disparate narrative and philosophical elements into a coherent and satisfying whole, rendered all the more satisfying by its simple, almost primal chord changes: I-V, I-V, I-V-I-IV, I-V-I. This harmonic structure successfully portrays the ambling, andante motion of the four Italian boys, with their left-right, left-right corresponding to the I-V, I-V. The opening lines, "Let's all walk with our hands in our pockets/ Me like him like you" recalls the Beatles' "I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together," establishing an equivalence between Garcia and the "four Italian boys," whose identities are never revealed and thus take on a Kafkaesque archetypal quality; the fundamental "oneness" of the song, however, also complicates the appearance of Roman Gonzalez, whose brief appearance assumes an air of ineffable significance if only because of its very briefness; if he were not a crucial element of the song-story, why would he be included at all? This briefness-which-comments-upon-its-own-significance may in fact be related to the idea of the short-song, whose very existence is in some ways proof of significance. In any case, Gonzalez "turned right [when Garcia] turned left." If Gonzalez and Garcia in fact turned in opposite directions, how can we "all walk with our hands in our pockets/ Me like him like you"? The knee-jerk reaction is to assume that Garcia and Gonzalez are in fact the same character, much like Samuel Beckett's Molloy and Moran. But a further extension of the analogy, though precarious, may yield rewards: Garcia is performing this song for an audience, and, as the final song of the evening, no doubt strives to create an artificial sense of unity for the audience and the evening's performers, so as to leave the concert on "a good note" (pun intended). Thus the line "Me like him like you" might be translated as "Garcia like the rest of the performers like the audience," whereby the unification of artist and audience is admirably accomplished. With "Where's my watch at?" Garcia subtly subverts himself, calling attention to the fact that the audience is in fact a captive audience, and that they have indeed been sitting in the same room for some time. This elicits a laugh, on the surface because of the comical pseudogrammar of the lyrics; but upon further consideration, the audience appears to laugh at their own foolishness, at their gullibility in allowing themselves to waste an evening listening to eight young students sing seventeen silly songs. But Garcia, ever the master of his medium, quickly averts the audience's attention before they have time to resent him or the other performers by bringing up the larger philosophical themes for which his work is frequently praised. Upon the mention of God, Josh craftily inserts a IV chord, which immediately calls to mind the liturgical associations of this chord in the infamous "Amen" cadence. He also momentarily suspends the harmonic motion here, lingering divinely on the IV, robbing the listener of the previous illusion of movement (and calling attention to its constructedness as a psychoacoustic phenomenon based solely on the listener's acculturation into Western classical and popular music, whose composers and audiences have always assumed the equivalence, as obsessive as it is arbitrary, of musical time with actual time) in perfect conjunction with the line, "I can't even tell the time." This artful yet subtle play is mirrored in Josh's characteristic singing, rhythmically out-of-time in relation to its accompaniment, at whose many levels of meaning we can only speculate: Does he consider himself "out of step" with the Italian boys, their hair slicked uniformly back in comparison with his unruly curls? Is this his wholehearted attempt to dissociate once and for all the independent musical concepts of rhythm and melody, whose intimate relation throughout the history of Western classical and popular music has been as obsessive and as arbitrary as that of musical time with actual time? Regardless, Garcia moves seamlessly away from this unanswered question, which he gives the illusion of answering by means of the decisive harmonic motion back to the I-V of the exposition. With this return, he couples a recapitulation of the original theme, that is, the oneness of all things: "With our hands in our pockets/ Like yours, like mine." The "him" of the original line ("Me like you like him") has now disappeared, ostensibly because Garcia assumes, or wishes to lead the audience to believe, that his performance, in its finality and in its cool dismissiveness of all the musical tropes and tricks employed by his colleagues throughout the rest of the concert, somehow eclipses the other performers. And yet if all things are one, this hardly matters; so long as we all have our hands in our pockets, Garcia claims, we are equal in the eyes of God and in the hands of Time, whether musical or otherwise. The irony, of course, is that Garcia's hands are in fact out of his pockets; otherwise, how could he play his guitar? Thus the final image of the concert is one of malicious humor: the audience, thinking they are laughing at Garcia, but in fact laughing at themselves for their willingness to subject themselves to the coercive demands of the performers; the seven other students, shifting uncomfortably in their seats as Garcia effectively sings them out of existence; and the sinister Garcia himself, hiding his hubris behind the veneer of laughter. Our only consolation may be that God himself laughs similarly at Garcia.
10. A Synthesis
Neverland
goes like this:
A1 B C
A2 B C
A3 B C
A4 B C
A5 B2
A1
Sitting on my father’s knees,
I turned the wheel and fumbled with the keys
Couldn’t tell if they were Black or White or blue
He told me of his Glory Days
He showed me how a record plays
And sighed: “But son, there’s still work left to do.”
All because one cold September morning
Freedom, borne away, was born again
But I still got one song up my sleeve
You say the magic is gone, but I still want to believe
No matter what the Weatherpeople say
B
But if I had just one day to crawl out of the darkness. . .
It’s so hard to see the stars, but oh! the sunset is so grand
And good old boys have lost their bearings, so they’ll turn and ask the band:
“Do you recall the way to Neverland?”
C
F#Maj7 BMaj9
F#Maj7 E13/D
F#Maj7 BMaj9
d# min9
A2
November, Hope was running high
We brandished banners in the sky
We found a lucky penny and we called it in the air
Heads: we dig a deeper well
Tails: we wire thermostats in Hell
Am I a fool to wonder if the coin is fair?
With all the Change in all our pockets,
could we send a rocket to the moon?
But if the universe is shaped exactly like a scroll
We could shoot for the edge and never reach our goal
By the time we get to Pluto, we’ll be lightyears from the Milky Way
B
C
A3
Then we were all in different places
Too far flung to feel embraces
Until the Angler caught us in her knotty, tangled Net
The Angler, she had all the answers
Spun her silky legs like dancers
And wrote a book of names and faces never to forget
Though cameras capture every block
They'll never catch a rolling rock, you'll see
And if it weren't for hits and heights
We'd be reduced to bits and bytes
Parading down a big blue glass display
B
C
A4
The river was rising and the moon was dimming
But the Koi and the Catfish never went nightswimming
Just floated down the stream about a mile
So all things flow and all things grow
and who knows where the snow geese go?
It hasn’t been white in winter for a while
So we damned our sons and daughters
When we bottled up the water in a bank
Then the bubble burst cos the figures were fudged
Tried to jump my Chevy, but it wouldn’t budge
So I’m stranded by the fuming, blooming Bay
B
C
A5
But the King of Pop is dead and the Joker’s lost the beat
And they’re lying side-by-side in bed in silence, obsolete
and I am shouting in the street
without rhythm or melody
passion or jealousy
meaning or memory
spouting treasures and lies in equal measure.
Do these cries betray pleasure or pain?
No middle ground between Heaven & Earth
From the womb to the tomb, we’ve been dying since birth
No point in sticking around, you’re heading straight to the ground anyway
B2
But if I had just one day to crawl out of the darkness,
feel the sun on my skin,
Breathe intoxicant oxygen in. . .
If I had one day to shake away the soot and silt and sand
I would take you by the hand
I would take you somewhere soft and sacred
Somewhere secret, free from regret
Far from spies and satellites and sleeper cells and city blights
Free of cables, free of strings,
Free of gods and laws and kings
and words and notes and names for things
and gold and oil and diamond rings
9. A Pop Song
Hey Girl
goes like this
A1
B1
A2
B2
C
A3
A1
CMaj B7 emin
Hey girl, I gotta be honest
CMaj B7 amin emin
I got a nasty need to do a dirty deed and I wanna get in your pants
C B7 e
My world is full of illusion
C B7 a e
So I hope you don’t pay attention to the words, just listen to the beat and dance
B1
emin7
Hey girl, I can see what you doin
DMaj7
over there, playin in the shadow with your
emin7
long brown hair. Swing it like you got a
DMaj7
hula hip around your hips, lick your lips, blow me a
emin7
kiss, and say, “Bring it to me.” And now I'll take care,
DMaj7
try not to stare too long at your Wonder Woman
emin7
underwear, cos I'm a little bit scared but I
DMaj7
I think that you and me could make a fine pair.
A2
Girl, I gotta be honest
I got a nasty need to do a dirty deed and I wanna get in your pants
My world is full of intoxication
So I hope you don’t pay attention to the words, just listen to the beat and dance.
B2
And here comes the second verse, but the beat’s the same. You put me under a curse, and now I love you but I don't even know your name. All I know is all I feel is all I wanna do is left, left, stomp, clap, and side to side; go slow, lean back, enjoy the ride. So what's your game, girl? My aim is so high, but I know you're gonna put me to shame.
C
emin
Put me to shame
DMaj
Put me to shame
CMaj
Put me to shame
B7
Put me to shame
A3
Hey girl, I gotta be honest
I got a nasty need to do a dirty deed and I wanna get in your pants
My world is full of a love love love love
So I hope you don’t pay attention to the words, just listen to the beat and
NC
dance.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
7. A Team Effort
Fjord [but maybe a better title would be Cycling] (Silzer/Leibovic)
goes like this:
A1 B C
D E F
A2 B C
A1
G
Maybe I’ll go
f#
for a bike
e
ride
Along the edge of a fjord
So I can flirt with the notion of falling
Or meditate in the roar
Of the ocean running beside me
Or take a swim if I'm bored
In the tidepools of temptation
Drinking more and more
B
D
And rape the archi
a
pelagos be
e
neath aurora
C
borealis
C
GMaj
Slowly, the
GMaj7
water will move be
Gsus4
low me.
Cycle it back to sky
But it’s a tired try
And you may wonder why
D
5/4 riff in G Lydian over 4/4 bass pattern
E
Parker's solo in b minor in 12/8
F
Jonathan's solo in G Lydian in 4/4
A1
What [wet] poison played
(a drip! a drop!)
A cool cascade
(a slip! a slop!)
Mistakes were made.
(a flip! a flop!)
Sat in the shade and missed [mist] a lot
B
And rape the archipelagos beneath aurora borealis
C
Slowly, the water will move below me.
Cycle it back to sky
But it's a tired try
And you may wonder why
Cycle it back to sky
6. A Work in Progress
Happy Birthday
Today is a very special day
[Dai]sies and daffodils, hooray!
[Rai]se your glasses as we toast the [lad/lass] who matters most:
ONE you’re sweet and TWO you’re sunny and THREE you’re the talk of the town!
FOUR you’re fine and FIVE you’re funny and SIX you’re even cute when you frown!
SEVEN you’re kind and EIGHT you’re cool and NINE you’re the belle of the ball!
TEN you’re wise and ELEVEN you’re clever and TWELVE you’re the best of us all!
[everyone shouts the numbers; each guest, in sequence, supplies one of the compliments improvisatorially, attempting rhyming couplets as above, resulting in embarrassment and hilarity for all, until the birthday person’s age, X, is reached]
[X] is how old you are today!
[If the birthday person is ashamed of eir age, continue with the following verses, which should cause sufficient embarrassment to deflect all potential shame away from age]
It’s hard to think about your birthday
Without thinking about death.
You’re not so young. Soon the day will come
When you draw your final breath.
But don’t you fret! Don’t get upset!
Because presently our presents are the best that you could get.
It's hard to think about your birthday
Without thinking about your parents having sex.
With giggles and gushes and rhythmic raging rushes
and tweaks and tugs and spanks and yanks and pecks
and tickles and twists and fingers and fists
thanks to your Daddy who ejects and your Mommy who accepts. . .
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