...or, if you prefer to do your own singing:
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
The 12 Musings of Christmas
Wednesday, December 24, 2014
The 12 Composers of Christmas (The 12 Musings of Christmas #12)
...or, if you prefer to do your own singing:
The 12 Musings of Christmas
Tuesday, December 23, 2014
The 12 Tones of Christmas (The 12 Musings of Christmas #11)
Once again, today's feature isn't my own creation (though I wish it was), but it's a true Christmas classic that should be celebrated - and, I do have my own two cents to add. Richard McQuillan's "The Twelve Tones of Christmas" brilliantly houses a famous count-to-12 song within a 12-tone accompaniment, "fiendishly deployed to maximize the dissonance level," in the composer's words. He also scored it for the unusually piquant combination of ocarina and harpsichord, instruments which are perhaps even more chilling in digitally synthesized form.
I wrote a couple of years ago that it "sounds like the kind of thing that would be playing if Captain Kirk showed up on a planet ruled by some sort of eccentric aristocrat." In fact, I'm sure I was thinking of "The Squire of Gothos" episode, in which you can see the strange guest star playing some intergalactic Scarlatti at the 5:48 mark here. It's not 12-tone music, but it would be better if it was.
Anyway, Schoenberg supposedly dreamed of a day when children would be whistling 12-tone tunes in the street. We're not there yet, but I decided to do the next best thing and have my 9-year old daughter sing "The 12 Days of Christmas" while I played McQuillan's spiky accompaniment on the piano. Child labor laws being what they are and me trying to read from an iPad (which allows Airturn page-turning but makes for some small notes), I can't say I nailed every tone in the few takes we did. Perhaps an advanced ear training class could take on the challenge of figuring out where I betrayed the row. Nonetheless, I think it makes its effect, the child's voice bringing an extra layer of sweetness to the texture.
I wish I'd used separate mics to get better balance, and I wish I hadn't kept rushing ahead to the cadences; but the world needs more domestic 12-tone music-making, and I'm glad to have done my small part. Some day, perhaps, every home will have a harpsichord and Schoenbergiads will be commonplace - if not in this galaxy, then in some strange new world.
The 12 Musings of Christmas (so far...)
I wrote a couple of years ago that it "sounds like the kind of thing that would be playing if Captain Kirk showed up on a planet ruled by some sort of eccentric aristocrat." In fact, I'm sure I was thinking of "The Squire of Gothos" episode, in which you can see the strange guest star playing some intergalactic Scarlatti at the 5:48 mark here. It's not 12-tone music, but it would be better if it was.
Anyway, Schoenberg supposedly dreamed of a day when children would be whistling 12-tone tunes in the street. We're not there yet, but I decided to do the next best thing and have my 9-year old daughter sing "The 12 Days of Christmas" while I played McQuillan's spiky accompaniment on the piano. Child labor laws being what they are and me trying to read from an iPad (which allows Airturn page-turning but makes for some small notes), I can't say I nailed every tone in the few takes we did. Perhaps an advanced ear training class could take on the challenge of figuring out where I betrayed the row. Nonetheless, I think it makes its effect, the child's voice bringing an extra layer of sweetness to the texture.
I wish I'd used separate mics to get better balance, and I wish I hadn't kept rushing ahead to the cadences; but the world needs more domestic 12-tone music-making, and I'm glad to have done my small part. Some day, perhaps, every home will have a harpsichord and Schoenbergiads will be commonplace - if not in this galaxy, then in some strange new world.
The 12 Musings of Christmas (so far...)
Monday, December 22, 2014
Make it so (The 12 Composers of Christmas #10)
Day 10 might be considered either the best of times or the worst of times in "The 12 Musings of Christmas." This video is brilliant and entertaining, but I can't take ANY credit for it, nor have I creatively interacted with it in any sort of way. I'm just saying it's awesome. I'd penciled it in when I first started plotting out this series of specials, but I hadn't realized just how popular the video is, so I'm not sure I'm doing much service by possibly adding a few more numbers to the half a million who've already seen it. Nevertheless:
So, if you haven't yet seen Captain Picard et al singing "Let it snow"...make it so.
Also, since I'm here, I might as well mention (already tweeted) the perverse delight I experienced on Saturday at a Christmas pageant rehearsal. Using the accompanist edition of The Hymnal 1982, I was about to start in on the last phrase of "Hark, the herald angels sing" as a hymn intro. My foot headed for what I assumed was a B-flat in the pedal when I suddenly noticed there was no B-flat in the key signature...in the bass clef. The treble staff had the expected B-flat, so it's obviously a misprint, but that's a pretty big misprint. You might be wondering what it would sound like to hear the bass staff played without B-flats. Make it so!
The 12 Musings of Christmas (so far...)
Naturally, I did start thinking about ways I might interact with this idea, but I couldn't come up with anything half as clever. Plus, silly as it is, creating this video must've taken a LOT of time. I did notice a few years back that Charles Ives wrote a song which begins (in the piano part) with the first seven notes of "Let it Snow." It would be easy enough (trivial, really) to work the rest of "Let it snow" into Ives' open-door harmonic world, but I'm not sure that would be very entertaining since Ives' song isn't very familiar.
So, if you haven't yet seen Captain Picard et al singing "Let it snow"...make it so.
Also, since I'm here, I might as well mention (already tweeted) the perverse delight I experienced on Saturday at a Christmas pageant rehearsal. Using the accompanist edition of The Hymnal 1982, I was about to start in on the last phrase of "Hark, the herald angels sing" as a hymn intro. My foot headed for what I assumed was a B-flat in the pedal when I suddenly noticed there was no B-flat in the key signature...in the bass clef. The treble staff had the expected B-flat, so it's obviously a misprint, but that's a pretty big misprint. You might be wondering what it would sound like to hear the bass staff played without B-flats. Make it so!
The 12 Musings of Christmas (so far...)
Sunday, December 21, 2014
Savior of the Nations, Come (The 12 Musings of Christmas #9)
For the first eight days of "The 12 Musings of Christmas" I've focused on lighthearted holiday fare. On this 4th Sunday of Advent, which also happens to be the darkest day of the year, here's a more somber musical offering. (Yes, I know that running this series before Christmas should make it all Advent and that the real twelve days of Christmas start on the 25th. We'll put such complaints in the "so sue me" category.)
Many years ago, I had the idea of creating a complete set of piano transcriptions of the 46 short chorale preludes in Bach's Orgelbüchlein. (Busoni made characteristically rich transcriptions of a small selection, but at the time I wasn't aware of any complete piano sets. Now I am.) I only made it through about ten before putting the project on hold, but I might return to it some day. My idea had always been that this kind of repertoire is a great way for pianists to work on voicing and balancing dense counterpoint - and to get to know a type of Bachian keyboard writing different from what one finds in the suites and the Well-Tempered Clavier.
One of my favorites of Bach's collection is the first piece, Nun, komm', der Heiden Heiland, based on a chorale which the composer also featured elsewhere in a much more elaborate prelude and in a couple of cantatas. But I love the simplicity of this relatively straightforward setting, in which the tune is presented once, slowly, above a rich web of interlocking countersubjects. It's almost as if one hears Bach slowly harmonizing the tune one part at a time, so there's always something in motion and out of synch. I think of such music as tilted. (Here's my favorite tilted piece.)
I do play it more slowly (on organ and piano) than most, I suppose because I like hearing the gears turning. I have much more I could say about the arrangement, Bach on the piano, the fact that my piano needs tuning, the use of Lilypond as an engraving tool, and the way in which Bach's music beautifully captures the mystery of anticipation at this darkest time of year. But, it's almost midnight, so I'm going to let the starkness of the music, the arrangement, and the impromptu recording* speak for themselves:
And, if you're curious, here's what Bach's original version sounded like on the organ when I was practicing for Advent 2 a couple of weeks ago.
UPDATE: You can hear the chorale tune sung, followed by a real organist's performance of the Bach prelude here.
* made just minutes ago at the end of a very long day on this shortest day of the year.
The 12 Musings of Christmas (so far...)
Many years ago, I had the idea of creating a complete set of piano transcriptions of the 46 short chorale preludes in Bach's Orgelbüchlein. (Busoni made characteristically rich transcriptions of a small selection, but at the time I wasn't aware of any complete piano sets. Now I am.) I only made it through about ten before putting the project on hold, but I might return to it some day. My idea had always been that this kind of repertoire is a great way for pianists to work on voicing and balancing dense counterpoint - and to get to know a type of Bachian keyboard writing different from what one finds in the suites and the Well-Tempered Clavier.
One of my favorites of Bach's collection is the first piece, Nun, komm', der Heiden Heiland, based on a chorale which the composer also featured elsewhere in a much more elaborate prelude and in a couple of cantatas. But I love the simplicity of this relatively straightforward setting, in which the tune is presented once, slowly, above a rich web of interlocking countersubjects. It's almost as if one hears Bach slowly harmonizing the tune one part at a time, so there's always something in motion and out of synch. I think of such music as tilted. (Here's my favorite tilted piece.)
I do play it more slowly (on organ and piano) than most, I suppose because I like hearing the gears turning. I have much more I could say about the arrangement, Bach on the piano, the fact that my piano needs tuning, the use of Lilypond as an engraving tool, and the way in which Bach's music beautifully captures the mystery of anticipation at this darkest time of year. But, it's almost midnight, so I'm going to let the starkness of the music, the arrangement, and the impromptu recording* speak for themselves:
And, if you're curious, here's what Bach's original version sounded like on the organ when I was practicing for Advent 2 a couple of weeks ago.
UPDATE: You can hear the chorale tune sung, followed by a real organist's performance of the Bach prelude here.
* made just minutes ago at the end of a very long day on this shortest day of the year.
The 12 Musings of Christmas (so far...)
Saturday, December 20, 2014
A Christmas Carol (The 12 Musings of Christmas #8)
Today, we turn from distorted sleigh rides to a more sentimental type of musing. What's better than gathering the family around to watch a classic Christmas movie on a cold winter's Saturday night? How about watching a movie starring your family? Here we have my first ever cinematic production, a somewhat abbreviated filming of the Dickens' tale (which, itself, is a pretty short story) starring a variety of nieces and nephews. Here's what I wrote about it seven Decembers ago:
I know that posting it veers pretty closely into family insider territory on the level of making someone sit through all your vacation photos - which, come to think of it, is now pretty routine on Facebook. I don't expect everyone to be as charmed by my family as I am, but I do think this is a fairly unique document of...something. There's bad jokes aplenty, a singing fish, and some genuinely moving moments. And it's much shorter than all those other Scrooge movies!
I've posted this on YouTube in two parts before, but this is the first time it's available in a single movie, with somewhat improved video (though this was in the "Christmas past" days before HD.)
The 12 Musings of Christmas (so far...)
The backstory is that I'd just gotten a computer powerful enough to import and edit video (remember when that wasn't routine), so on the drive down to see our large assortment of adorable nieces and nephews that Christmas, my sister and I hatched the plan of making a movie. Dickens' tale seemed the obvious choice, and somehow the casting all worked out pretty easily too. Since many of the actors were under the age of 6, the basic process was to feed lines one at a time and shoot. I made all sorts of videoing mistakes, such as not realizing that when I stopped (not paused) and then restarted the camera, I'd lose the last few seconds of the previous take. This, and the realities of shooting the whole thing in a couple of days with young children (and those annoying child labor laws) meant that the editing task that followed presented some . . . challenges. Although it took me almost two years to brave the task, I had a great time working within these rather tight constraints.It's amazing to realize that the Scrooge and Bob Cratchit from this production are now college freshmen, and the even younger "Christmas girl" is dancing the Sugar Plum Fairy this weekend for an excellent ballet company. My oldest daughter was only a toddler at the time, so she only toddles on and off screen briefly in the party scene. This movie is definitely a ghost of Christmas past.
The final product is quite charming, and even features some special effects that tested the limits of the bargain-basement software I used. Of course the cute kids carry the film (my then 1-year old daughter makes a tiny cameo walking through the party scene), but the aesthetic point to be made here is that the constraints become a part of the language of the work. I wrote about that (and another family movie) in a past post, how certain flaws that would be unacceptable in one context are actually positives in another. (I was thinking something tangentially related the other day listening to Kermit the Frog sing on a Christmas album; that goofy, shaky voice would not be acceptable from just any singer, but our associations with Kermit's persona make it meaningful. Maybe the same could be said of Bob Dylan's voice, although his sound isn't as polished as Kermit's.)
I know that posting it veers pretty closely into family insider territory on the level of making someone sit through all your vacation photos - which, come to think of it, is now pretty routine on Facebook. I don't expect everyone to be as charmed by my family as I am, but I do think this is a fairly unique document of...something. There's bad jokes aplenty, a singing fish, and some genuinely moving moments. And it's much shorter than all those other Scrooge movies!
I've posted this on YouTube in two parts before, but this is the first time it's available in a single movie, with somewhat improved video (though this was in the "Christmas past" days before HD.)
The 12 Musings of Christmas (so far...)
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