In the Beginning

I do remember who told me about the singer and the album even though a new generation has come into being since that day.  The album title...I didn’t know what the heck it meant.  The only time I’d ever come across one of the words was while reading Marvel’s Dr. Strange...and I wasn’t a big fan of that comic..too surreal for me. So, I wasn’t really inclined to act on the suggestion of Wild Eyed Fred...

I remember where I bought the album/vinyl/ 33 1/3 rpm phonograph record--Leisure Landing, THE record store right outside the North Gates of LSU on West Chimes Street in Baton Rouge, La.  Some of the folks who worked there also played in a band called, “The Shitdogs,” but despite that affiliation, they were an affable lot...knew a LOT about music and were more than willing to help a music newbie out in the “I want to check something new out, whatcha got?” department.

So there I was on a Friday afternoon, talking to a guy I had privately nicknamed, “Wild Eye Fred,” on account of his lazy eye.  He was borderline rotund with tight, curly long hair that he parted down the middle.  Must have been about 5’6” or 5’7” and usually wore a short sleeve T with something provocative printed on the front. Fred looked like he had just rolled out of bed and his hygiene...let’s just say his breath was not sweet and leave it at that.  Anyway...I told WEF that I wasn’t into the late 70s early 80s stuff that passed for pop music on many Baton Rouge radio stations.  It was pap music from the likes of Survivor (yeah at LSU we heard, “Eye of the Tiger” a hell of a lot) and a thousand bands playing Disco.  Don’t get me wrong, I’ve since embraced Disco and do occasionally allow the Inner Rhythm King to make his presence known when I’m waiting for the dogs to “get busy” in the dog run at 10 o’clock at night. But at the time, I was not so enlightened.

Fred and I stood next to the M section in the store.  I droned on about my likes and dislikes of contemporary Pop while he nodded, rummaged around in the section and thumbed through the records (the original multi-tasker was Fred).  He came upon an album and said, “Hey man, you might want to check this guy out,” and handed me the LP.  

I looked at the album art and was not impressed.  Yeah, the font was sort of cool, but the guy in the picture didn’t have the typical rock/pop star mien,  Also, his name....it wasn’t that memorable and there was already a dude back in the 60s that had a similar last name, and while I liked that singer’s group, I wanted something I had not yet heard.  

I checked out the song titles on the back of the album and noticed one thing right off the bat...many of the songs were pretty damn long...7 -9 minutes.  I began feeling a little queasy about spending the “textbook” dollars my dad had given me on a “concept” record -- not because I thought it a crumby thing to do with those educational dollars...buy a record. No, I had already done the mental calculus and figured that I was either going to have to give the sad goodbye to the big drunk I had planned for later that evening or skip a meal on Saturday since I had already spent most of my weekend meal money, and it was only Friday afternoon. 

Bummer.

But hey, I would work on that dilemma later, because I noticed Wild Eye Fred’s good eye was starting to twitch, which to me meant that either he wanted to go on break because he was seriously Jonesing for a cigarette, or he had to take a shit.  

I reviewed the situation:

• I realized that he was waiting on me to make a decision about the album

• I did not wish to keep him in suspense any longer because,

• I was not interested in learning if he needed a cigarette or needed to take a shit

And that’s how I came to buy Astral Weeks by Van Morrison.

Next Month’s Post:  Afterwards (the rest of the story…)

Hard Eight now on iTunes

The last in the three album arc, Hard Eight, is now on itunes and available for download (Hard Eight in iTunes).

Hard Eight is an eight-song cycle of some inner wanderings and real life travels I undertook from 2010 through 2012.  I recorded much of the work in Redmond, WA and Dallas, TX in 2012 and 2013.  Five of the eight are original works, two are traditional songs, and there is one cover of a Dylan tune.

Take a listen, let me know what you like and don't like...that will help me in the next album.

Thanks,

jc

Pietism & Bach

The early eighteenth century was a period of relative tranquility in Western Europe compared to the seventeenth century and the religious and political upheavals of the 30 Years’ War.  In Protestant Germany, the question of the necessity for intercession and entreaty between God and Man, by agent or agency, had been answered with the evolution of Luther’s teachings through the development of Pietism.  Routley writes (1967) that in Germany, Pietism was “…an intensely individual piety without any ‘fighting’ qualities of doctrine” (p. 154). The individual could become one with God through direct, spiritual prayer and atonement without fear of persecution.

Perhaps this notion of atonement, the attempt by Man to become one with God through personal petition, influences and informs many of Bach’s works, for it is within the setting of Pietism that Bach “…lived but to worship God and write music” (Cross & Ewen 1969, p. 22).  In the years between 1718 and 1723, he merged both of these endeavors while serving as Kapellmeiser and director of chamber music at the court of Prince Leopold of Anhalt in Cöhen and writing Six Suites for Unaccompanied Cello.  One example from that work that illustrates Pietism’s central tenet, the individual’s determined, personal effort to reach God, is Bach’s Prelude of Suite No.1 in G Major, BWV 1007.  

A single musical voice sounds throughout the work’s forty-two measures, consisting of sixteenth notes with few exceptions.  A low bass note, repeated in every eight-note arpeggio, may represent the inertia of physical existence, from which the individual must break free in order to reach God, while the higher notes of the series suggest the attempt by Man to break earthly bonds and reach God. The difference between the lowest and highest notes of each arpeggio is great, and this difference implies that there is a gulf, a separation between Man and God, which Man attempts to bridge. By measure five, the bonds are almost broken, and Man gradually ascends to the spiritual plane of God as the musical pattern ascends in pitch.  

As the work continues, the melodic line occasionally falls back to the lower register of the work’s beginning, hinting that Man’s struggle to become one with God may ultimately fail.  Near the end of the piece, intensity and tension increase as the cello’s bow moves rapidly and aggressively across its strings and mimics the considerable effort required to bridge the gulf.  

As I listen to the work, I wonder if Bach is suggesting that the earthly bonds that ground man in physical existence are too strong to be broken by Man’s effort alone.  Perhaps, the gulf is too broad to cross without intercession by external agent or agency.  But Bach provides resolution to my concerns in the last measure’s final chord, which consists of the low bass note heard in the beginning of the work and two notes at a much higher pitch. A second instrument (agent) does not assist in the struggle to bridge the gulf.  Instead, the three notes that compose the G major chord are played by cello alone, the single voice of the work, and I better comprehend Pietism and atonement; Man reaches up to God, and God reaches down to Man. God and Man are joined in that final chord.

References

Routley, E. (1967). The church and music. London: Gerald Duckworth & Co. LTD.

Cross, M., & Ewen, D. (Eds.). (1969). The milton cross new encyclopedia of the great composers and their music (Vol. 1). Garden City: Doubleday & Company, Inc.

Music Perception & Emotional Arousal

A new ballet debuted in Paris on the evening of May 29, 1913. The ballet, The Rite of Spring, depicted a ritual pagan suicide, a peasant girl’s dance of death, as an offering to the god of spring.  The work opened with a deeply affecting bassoon solo played in a register atypical for the instrument. With the second section, Adoration of the Earth – II, a series of strident, heavy, tension-producing chords assailed the audience and continued throughout the entire ballet.  Catcalls and loud booing gave way to pushing, jostling, and eventually fist-fighting (Glass 1998).  Audience members began fighting with one another, some calling the work genius, others decrying it as an assault against traditional ballet. Differences of opinion might have been expected with the debut of an avant-garde work, but could the music itself have played a role in exacerbating the strength of the disagreement between the two groups?  If so, what possible biological or cognitive mechanisms might have been at work?

Some experts advocate a neurophysiological view of the effect of music on emotional arousal.   In a program on music and the brain (Abumrad 2006), neuroscientist Jan Fishman states,  “We find that chords, musical chords that are typically judged to be dissonant, elicit these wild fluctuations in brain activity.”  In this view, a sub-population of neurons in auditory cortex sensitive to novel sounds is tasked with giving “sense” to the sound, in finding underlying patterns to the sound, and relating the patterns to innate or learned experience.  One explanation of the audience’s behavior is that the continued dissonance of Stravinsky’s work made it difficult for these neurons to find patterns in the music and to relate the music to past musical experiences. The overwhelmed neurons may have released dopamine in excess quantities, which contributed to a transitory effect on brain chemistry akin to a kind of temporary schizophrenia.  Frustration, confusion, and violent behavior ensued, regardless of whether the individual liked or disliked the work.

Ball (2008) describes cognitive views regarding music and emotional arousal.  One view is that emotional content is inherent in elements of music such as major or minor mode, tempo, timbre and melody.  These elements provide aural cues that humans have learned to interpret, which switch on emotional mechanisms of the brain and activate the sympathetic nervous system for action, or the parasympathetic system for inaction, depending on the cue presented. A scene in Hitchcock’s thriller, Psycho, may provide an example of this mechanism at work. 

Recall that the leading up to the shower scene in Psycho, Janet Leigh has embezzled money from her boss, and after a tension-filled day of dodging the law, she has decided to spend the night in the Bates Motel.  To unwind after the harrowing day, she takes a hot shower.  As she relaxes in the steam’s heat, the shower curtain is abruptly thrown back, and Anthony Perkins attacks her with a large kitchen knife.  Accompanying the attack are repeated, dissonant, high-pitched, intense staccato chords.  If the chords evoke the auditory memory pattern of the sounds made when sharpening a knife for slicing and cutting, then the music could amplify the viewer’s fear by recollection of that memory pattern as Jane Leigh is sliced and cut by the butcher knife in the hand of Anthony Perkins. 

Despite the mechanism advocated, there is agreement among physiologists and cognitive behaviorists that music can move us emotionally, regardless of culture, gender, or age.  Music has the ability to intensify joy or sadness, memories or hopes, despair or ecstasy. If the manipulation is too extreme vis-à-vis our expectations, the emotions evoked may cause individuals to lose control, and in the case of the premier of The Rite of Spring, to become riotous. 

References

Abumrad J. (Abumrad J. (Host) & Krulwich R. (Co-Host)), & Krulwich R. (Co-Host). (2006). Radiolab. Musical language: Sound as touch. Podcast retrieved fromhttp://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/episodes/2006/04/21.

Ball, P. (2008). Facing the music. Nature, 453(8 May 2008), 160-162. Retrieved fromhttp://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v453/n7192/pdf/453160a.pdf.

Glass, P. (1998). The time 100: Igor Stravinsky. Time, 1-3. Retrieved fromhttp://www.time.com/time/time100/artists/profile/stravinsky.html.