RVANews

Five not-to-miss acts at the Folk Festival

Bryan Hooten — Tue, 08 Oct 2013 11:35:40 +0000

Alash: Tuvan throat singing

http://youtu.be/RqRdGXuCsT8

I heard Alash a few years ago at the Folk Festival and was brought to tears. Tuvan throat singing might be the sound of the vibration of the universe, and if you have not experienced it before, do not miss this performance. Alash is named for a river that runs through central Tuva (a Russian republic in the geographical center of Asia), a nation whose music involves not only overtone-singing but also singing in pitched-unison with water rushing over rocks, wind sighing across the steppe, galloping horses, and the echo-chambers of mountain-flanked valleys. Tuvan songs about and evocative of animals include my personal favorite, Don’t Frighten the Crane.

Nathalie Pires

http://youtu.be/tEYZxK9G59Q

Indefinable yearning! This is the emotion that inspires Fado (fate in Portuguese). With a pure and captivating voice, Nathalie Pires sings of saudades (no English translation but evokes a state of intense nostalgia or melancholic longing) with all of the required histrionics. She will be accompanied by several virtuoso guitarists as the style demands. In Fado we experience the bittersweet catharsis of living, loving, losing, and lamenting.

Christine Salem

http://youtu.be/Mbg3C38vyyc

I often tell my students that all of the sounds in music can be traced back to drums and singing. Polyglot and polyrhythmic, thanks to a trio of percussionists and singers, Christine Salem’s call-and-response performance resonates from the heart of communal music making. Salem hails from Réunion Island, a French Province in the Indian Ocean, and sings in a blues-like style known as maloya. These sounds come right up out of the earth.

Kach Chi Ensemble

http://youtu.be/B-K0HsGwjdM

Fans of Richmond’s own Gamelan Raga Kusuma will dig this duo. A pair of virtuosic players and singers, Ho, Chi Khac and Hoang, Ngoc Bic present traditional Vietnamese music on a variety of bamboo instruments. Expect to hear tubed percussion keyboards, single player flutes, two-player flutes, squeeze-flutes, jaw harps, and the k’ni, a stringed instrument that uses the player’s mouth as a resonating chamber.

Janusz Prusinowski Trio

http://youtu.be/bfcsTxTKqH0

Great music, in the words of one of my former teachers, is unpredictable yet inevitable. The Janusz Prusinowski Trio’s brand of Polish village music embodies that truth through wildly swirling melodies and undulating, danceable rhythms. The four players in the trio combine clarinet, flute, shawm, fiddle, folk-bass, and percussion to evoke a mix of Mazurkas, math-metal, and moves (traditional dance moves, that is).

Photo by: DeathByBokeh

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Run for your Life: how yoga taught me to run with myself

Bryan Hooten — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 15:10:21 +0000

“I really love to run.” I said. “How much is running going to affect my yoga practice?”

“Well,” said Ellie, my yoga teacher, “Running is a tightening activity. Yoga is an opening activity.”

“Do you think I can do both?” I asked.

She replied “Yes, but you’ll have to work really hard.”

— ∮∮∮ —

I clearly remember the moment I decided to get serious about yoga. Last summer I was deep in the midst of the most profound wave of anxiety and depression I had ever experienced and was seeking professional help for the first time. Looking back, I realize I had been dealing with these demons for much of my life, never knowing how to name them. After hearing my story of panic attacks, sleepless nights, inability to focus, and lack of interest in music, my therapist said, “You must do yoga every day. You must meditate every day. You must exercise every day. You must play the trombone every day. If you do all of those things with consistency and still don’t feel any better, then, and only then, can we talk about prescription drugs.”

I had come up against something in my life that was beyond my capacity to handle, so I promised myself that I would do exactly as she said. Sure enough, a (almost) daily yoga practice, along with consistent exercise, meditation, and music-making, began to alchemize the soreness in my body and the tempest in my mind. Yoga became a way to work backwards from my forward-racing mind, a way to work inwards to find my true self.

I also clearly remember the moment I decided to start running. I was sitting on my parents’ couch in our home in Birmingham, Alabama during the summer between my junior and senior year of high school. I looked up from whatever book I was reading, noticed the beautiful day outside and thought, “I’m overweight. I have to run.” I called a few of my friends and we headed down to a local trail to heave our pudgy, teenaged bodies across a couple of miles. It hurt.

Running continued to hurt for many years afterwards, but I still did it, because I knew it was good for me, but also because, in a way, I liked the idea of punishing myself. I thought that punishing my body would help me atone for what I ate, how I looked, and, ultimately, how I felt about myself. I pushed myself to go faster and farther in what was often an attempt to escape from the present moment. I continued to run in this way through college, through my move to Richmond, and through several relationships and breakups. It wasn’t until I starting caring for and accepting myself on the yoga mat that I started caring for and accepting myself on the trails. Running became a way to work backwards and inwards to my true self.

I’m not a trained runner in any sense of word. I was never on a track team, and I’ve only run a couple of organized races. At my personal peak, I would run 25-30 miles a week but have scaled that back to 10-15 to make way in my hamstrings for yoga. I’m not a yoga or meditation guru but I have been practicing consistently for nearly a year, under the instruction of Ellie Burke, and have witnessed profound changes in all parts of my life, even remarking to someone recently that there are no longer ‘parts’ of my life. How I run is how I eat is how I feel is how I love is how I practice yoga is how I play trombone is how I...

A good friend of mine recently tweeted that she was experiencing upper back pain after her runs. I flew to my computer and typed out what would become this article. While I can only speak to what has worked for me, I hope that the following can inspire others to learn to run and to live free from injury, carried along by limitless inspiration. The running techniques below have helped me to run with love and acceptance rather than from them, to work backwards towards my true self.

— ∮∮∮ —

The present moment

During my first vinyasa class with Ellie Burke, after some announcements, she invited us to begin the practice by centering.

“Find a comfortable seat on your mat or on a blanket, crossing your legs at the shins. It doesn’t matter what you look like. What matters is that you feel stable and supported. Bow the head and gently close the eyes. Bring your awareness to the sounds in the room or just outside of the room. Let them wash over you without judging them, without creating a story around them. Now become aware of sensation, of your feet against the floor, the support of your seat, your hands on your legs. Maintaining awareness of sound and sensation, bring your awareness to the breath without changing it. Even, steady inhale. Even, steady, exhale. The mind will wander, that is its nature. When the mind wanders you can always bring your awareness back to experience, back to sound, sensation and breath. Through experience we reconnect with our true nature, that which is perfect, whole, and complete.”

First, I humbly suggest that, when you go out to run, you leave the watch and the ipod at home and put away the scale. These are useful tools but they represent narratives of the mind, not awareness of the body. When we come into awareness of the physical body, how it feels instead of where and how fast it’s going, that awareness reveals new sensations, thoughts, and feelings. Meditators know that, in stillness, we can observe these phenomena. As runners, we can we can cultivate stillness as we move. Instead of focusing on pace, distance, and weight, let’s become aware of breath, sound, and sensation.

Sound

Late one October, I was lacing up to do a few laps around the track at Hanover High School. I work with the marching band there, and the band director and I had planned to run a couple of miles after rehearsal. I’d forgotten my running shoes but I did have a pair of Chinese volleyball shoes I bought in Qingdao while visiting my brother a couple of summers ago. With the legends of the Tarahumara runners racing through my head thanks to Christopher McDougall’s Born to Run, I decided to give the minimal shoe thing a try.

Sure enough, running on the balls of my feet, necessitated by my shoe’s skinny, uniform sole, dropped me immediately into an intensely quiet experience. I spent the next mile running in a kind of trance, each sound and sensation echoing through me in slow motion. Feeling good, I listened to the voice of my old runner-self when it says “You should do another mile. Make sure you get your workout in.” Not being content in the present moment, I pushed through the extra mile and came to rest with a deeply knotted right calf. I had run a little too hard and in ways my muscles weren’t used to. Running quietly had expanded my awareness, but I had injured myself by placing my concern on the outcome of my experience, not on the experience itself.

Close your eyes. Let the sounds inside and outside of the room wash over you and through you, without grabbing at them or creating a story around them. Check in with your body and notice if you feel more centered and present. Now close your eyes and repeat the process. How do you feel?

Perhaps the greatest external indicator of running ease and efficiency is sound. Check in with the sound created by your feet striking the ground. The heel, since it contains little to no natural shock absorption transforms a significant amount of its striking energy into sound. Take your shoes off and run around for a minute or two. Notice how your foot meets the ground. Striking at the mid-foot or on the ball mounds allows the structure of the foot to absorb and dissipate the impact. It should be noted that any change in footwear or switch from heel-strike to toe-strike while running should be done gradually.

Using your current technique, but without focusing too intently on exactly how you are doing it, just try to run more quietly and see if that improves how you feel in the rest of the body. Run in such a way that your footfalls integrate with the ambient noise around you rather than block it out. On symbolic level, a loud, stomping footfall resists the support that the ground has to offer, while a soft footfall accepts that support. Acceptance of support empowers us.

Sensation

I took a run after completing the first draft of this very article. I could feel that I hadn’t run in a week or so--my yoga-stretched hips and hamstrings struggled to remember this way of moving. I headed west on Monument on an unseasonably warm February day, and as I turned south on Malvern, I felt a slight tweak in my left foot, something at the top of my arch. I didn’t feel pain there, but rather, discomfort and similar sensations radiating through my upper back. I brought my awareness directly to my left arch, telling myself that I’ll stop if this discomfort becomes pain. The tweak remained even after my left turn onto Grove, but as I crossed over Thompson into the home stretch, it disappeared. Almost at the same moment, my hips and legs engaged and any trace of tension disappeared from my face, neck, and upper back. I ran the final mile and a half feeling euphoric.

Scan the body for places where you might be holding tension. Let the muscles of the face relax. Drop the tongue to the bottom of the mouth. Relax the jaw. Let the shoulders glide down the back. Sit with a tall spine, without rounding in the lower back. Check in with the body. Repeat this process with the eyes closed. How do you feel?

An awareness of the sound of our feet leads to the awareness of the sensation in our feet. Awareness of sensation can then pervade the rest of the body and we then discover the places where we hold unnecessary tension. This tension is a sign of avoidance of the present moment, of sending energy to parts of the body not engaged with the task at hand. As you run, relax the muscles in the face, neck, and upper back, allowing the energy of movement and contact to radiate through the body instead of resisting this energy. Notice how this release of tension affects your breathing and the way your feet strike the ground. Run while occasionally checking in with and releasing the tension in the body. Notice if, after your run, you feel less pain, discomfort and soreness. You might even notice a shift in your inner dialogue, replacing “at least running doesn’t hurt anymore” to “running feels good.”

Breath

On a late summer day, I ran one of my favorite Richmond routes--one that I call The Beast. It begins at my apartment and heads west through The Fan, turning south through Byrd Park before crossing the Nickel Bridge onto the southside Buttermilk trail. Swinging east, I navigated the ups and downs of the path as it wound through the trees along the river and then crossed Belle Isle. I maintained an even breath-to-step pace but my mind looked ahead to the steep ascent to Oregon Hill on the other side of the river. I reminded myself that the best preparation I could make for this hill is to run efficiently and with awareness. As I emerged from the trees and out into the field beneath the overpass, the sun hit my face and wiped out my anxiety about the approaching climb. I felt a profound sense of joy and contentment in the present moment, in just breathing and moving. When I reached the final climb, I ran straight up, without needing to rest at the top. I ran another mile through Oregon Hill and came to rest on my front porch in the The Fan, feeling as though I could run forever. It was the first time I had completed The Beast without a rest stop in years.

Inhale while slowly counting to four internally. Exhale while slowly counting to four internally. Practice this pattern for a few inhale/exhale cycles. When you have finished, check in with your body. How do you feel?

Start running. Inhale slowly through the nose for as many steps as is comfortable. Exhale through the nose for the same number of steps. As your heart rate increases, gradually work the ratio down to 4/4 or whatever is comfortable, and continue at that pace. Instead of adapting your breathing to your running, adapt your running to your breathing--never running faster or for longer than you can while maintaining that breath pace.

Continue to breathe through the nose for the duration of your run. Of course, if you start feeling light-headed or are receiving other panic signals from the body, do what you need to do to return to equilibrium. Breath-focus has been at the center of meditation disciplines for thousands of years but can also be a powerful tool for runners. When you feel the mind start to wander away from the experience of running, return your awareness to the breath and see how that centering affects the body. I have experienced some of the most profoundly euphoric moments of my life while running with breath-focus, but I have also experienced some of the most emotionally challenging moments in this way. Focusing on the breath opens us to the present moment and whatever it has to offer.

— ∮∮∮ —

When we bring our awareness to sound, sensation, and breath, we begin to observe the mind, which is perhaps the greatest obstacle to joyful, loving running. Through awareness, we teach the mind the difference between pain and discomfort. Pain is a signal of impending injury. Discomfort is often the signal of impending discovery. Experiencing this difference has a profound impact on our running and on our lives.

Through awareness, we release ourselves from our attachment to the outcomes of our running: distance, speed, and weight-loss. These measurements are only narratives created by the mind. Sound, sensation, and breath are not parts of a narrative but rather they are parts of our raw experience. Take a few weeks, or just one day a week, to run with awareness and see how you feel. When you feel good, you can go farther and faster than you ever thought possible.

Don’t Speak: musicality

Bryan Hooten — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 11:00:53 +0000

This is the first in a series of articles from Bryan Hooten, a Richmond-based trombonist, composer and music educator, that seek to streamline the way people, musicians and non-musicians included, talk about music.

Words cut. Words divide our sensory perceptions into “this and not that.” If words do not cut in this way, they are useless. Words are powerful tools that give us specificity. However, when we apply language to the densely tied knot of subjectivity that is The Arts, our words often loose some of their sharpness. I shall begin my streamlining mission with the word ‘musicality.’ This word, typically said with deep affectation and furrowed brow, is often used to praise or deride a performer or particular performance. Some usage examples include:

“Her playing wasn’t that technically proficient but she played with such musicality!”

“His playing was so mechanical. There was very little musicality.”

“I’ve been working really hard on my musicality.”

Saying someone played music with musicality is tantamount to saying someone ate eatingly or ran runningly, as if it were possible to do these things in any other way. To fully eviscerate this term, we must first decide what it means.

The Merriam Webster dictionary defines music as “the science or art of ordering tones or sounds in succession, in combination, and in temporal relationships to produce a composition having unity and continuity” and musicality as “sensitivity to, knowledge of, or talent for music.” Let us discard both of these definitions, starting with the root word. The “ordering of sounds” occurs equally in the listener and the composer/performer. This is a truth that, when followed to it’s logical conclusion, asserts that when we perceive any set of sounds (car horns, wind, cell-phones going off in the middle of Mahler 9) happening simultaneously or in order, music is occurring. Even as a musician, I have no problem with such a broad definition, but I’m a “the tree does not make a sound if no one is there to hear it” kind of person. In short: no listener, no sound. Listener creates music. According to the above definition, everything we hear is music. Also, as we will discuss later, not all music is designed to convey “unity” and “continuity.” The above definition of musicality also does not express the degree to which one must have sensitivity, knowledge or talent for music in order to be musical. I suppose being able to hear at all counts as sensitivity, being able to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ counts as ‘knowledge of’ and ‘talent-for.’ Having established that the definitions for music and musicality are hopelessly broad, allow me to state what I think people think they mean when they speak this way.

“Musicality means the expression of emotions through music.”

This definition is warm and fuzzy but doesn’t work because it is too broad. We are never “emotionless” and therefore every performance occurs at an equal level of emotionality. Perhaps people think that a performer ‘moved’ them in some way, whatever that means. However, if you intensely disliked something, you were moved. If you intensely liked something, you were moved. If you felt nothing, you were still feeling. If we take emotion to mean a state of being, it is impossible to play music without expressing an emotion.

“Musicality means expressing a wide range of dynamics, timbres and tempos.”

I think we are getting closer to something but this definition doesn’t work because it is too specific. Some music, especially Baroque (despite the way most people perform the Bach Cello Suites) and minimalist does not always ask for a wide rage of dynamics, timbres and tempos. Antonio Carlos Jobim doesn’t sing about the apocalyptic battle of the Norse gods and a fat lady with a Viking helmet and accompanied by a massive orchestra doesn’t sing about lounging on a Brazilian beach. If James Brown’s drummer played Sex Machine with the rhythmic push and pull of a Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto, no one could dance to it. For every specific element we throw into the ‘musicality’ basket, some piece requires the opposite element, therefore destroying this definition.

Here’s what I think some people really mean when they use the word musicality:

“I’m a smarter and more astute listener than you.”

Obviously, this attitude doesn’t do anyone any good. Here we have a prime example of jargon as a dividing line between the initiated and uninitiated. I said earlier that words must cut, that they must convey “this and not that.” Words must do this, however, so that people can have a common experience, so we can be specific about places, times and things. We must use words to divide our experience into logical pieces, but not to divide ourselves.

There are two things I ask of you, dear reader. One: In the comments below, please suggest alternatives for the word musicality. Two: There may be some holes in my argument so please don’t hesitate to point them out. However, if you must criticize, please do so critically.

Bryan Hooten is a Richmond, VA based trombonist, composer and educator. He performs and records with No BS! Brass, Fight the Big Bull, Ombak, Spacebomb Records and recently released his debut solo trombone album, Richmond Love Call. Hooten teaches music at VCU, James River High School and Hanover High School.

VCU presents pianist Fred Hersch

Bryan Hooten — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 10:00:12 +0000

RVAJazz presents RVAJazzfest 2011
sponsored in part by VCU Music
Saturday, April 9, 2011, 9pm.
Purchase tickets online

VCU Music is hosting pianist Fred Hersch for a residency in April, which will culminate in his performance with the VCU Jazz Orchestra I on April 12. Director of VCU Jazz Studies Antonio Garcia chatted with adjunct trombone instructor Bryan Hooten about what we can expect. -- Ed.

RVAJazz: Could you talk a little about VCU Jazz and how it chooses its guest artists?

Antonio Garcia: VCU Jazz is a great place to be. I've got great colleagues and a lot of hardworking students, planted within the top public school of arts and design in the U.S. Remember when that study came out a month or so about how college freshman and sophomores show little learned after years one and two in college? I can guarantee you that they didn't assess VCU Jazz students. We throw a lot at them, and it's great watching the young talents grow.

Our approach is summarized in our Mission Statement. If I were to pick a phrase or two to highlight, it would be the closer:

Jazz has long been and will remain a basis for myriad music derived from jazz roots, crossing all cultures, genders and nations, and absorbing from and spilling over into classical, rock, popular, and more. Our goal is to prepare our students for that future. The combination of a dedicated and creative faculty, inspiring guest artists, quality large and small ensembles, informative courses, and numerous performing opportunities in and outside of the school makes this goal readily achievable.

Most of the guest artists come our way as they're traveling elsewhere along I-95 for their "anchor" performances that pay the majority of their expenses. This keeps our own costs down. But once a year we have a three-day residency by an artist we plan for almost a year in advance. The targeted instrument rotates annually among those typically found in a big band. I ask our primary studio instructor of that instrument for his wish-list and start reaching out from there. In this case, Fred Hersch is one of Wells Hanley's former professors, as well as an internationally renowned composer/performer for whom so many have great respect; so the choice was a quick one! I'd been familiar with Fred Hersch's work for a long time; so when Wells proposed his name, I jumped at the chance!

On average, I hear from an artist every other week who wants to perform or present a workshop here. Obviously we have to be highly selective, based on our needs, budget, and calendar. Sometimes we bring in longtime jazz masters, or artists who follow closely in a mainstream jazz tradition. Often we bring in artists who are on the cutting edge of what modern jazz is or may become. Through it all, our goal is to expose our students and learning community to dedicated musicians who, like our own faculty, never stop learning.

RVAJazz: Which of his tunes will Hersch be doing with the big band?

AG: We're fortunate in that he was able to send us around ten charts to read through and choose from. That's a luxury I don't often get! And while all the pieces are available on CDs or via iTunes in recorded small-group format, these big band charts aren't recorded. In fact, Fred told me he hadn't performed them in ten years. So we have an opportunity to nearly premiere some great music.

The titles may not resonate with every jazz fan--Miss B., Heartsong, Mirage, Swamp Thang, and Marshall's Plan--but I chose them because of their color and variety. We get to break out the clarinets and bass clarinet, the brass mutes, and to play in swing, Latin, bluesy, bebop, and ballad styles. They're fun to play and fun to listen to. And of course the band will do a couple of tunes without him: some Basie, and an original arrangement by one of our students, guitarist Ben Misterka. As I write this, less than two weeks before the concert, his chart is still in excellent re-writes; so I'll say we have the final version when we walk on stage. We like to keep our jazz fresh at VCU!

RVAJazz: Will Hersch be doing any solo performing?

AG: I asked him directly if he'd be willing to play a solo piece on the JO I concert, and he'll perform a ballad of his choice, all alone that evening. That by itself will be worth coming for. He's also going to perform in small-group format with students for a school-only concert during his residency so that our students get to hear him in that format as well.

RVAJazz: What do you hope for pianists and non-pianists to absorb from his residency?

AG: Well, the two words that seem to pop up most in reviews of Fred's work are "beauty" and "lyricism." Here's a guy with tremendous technique, superb compositional skills on the jazz and classical side, great ears, and the mind and wit to combine these and more into expressive improvisations among the best on the planet. What's not to absorb?

There's also a lesson about commitment to be learned. It's difficult to fully explain or even demonstrate to any student what commitment really is and means, even as our society seems to move further and further from lasting commitments on a daily basis. But several of our visiting artists have spoken to our students about how they should always play as if it were their last opportunity to do so. Never mind if it's an ensemble rehearsal or self-practice or a high-profile performance. ALWAYS commit to your music-making as if it's your last opportunity, so that you can deliver your best expression at all times--which will of course benefit any ensemble or solo practice, much less a performance.

Fred Hersch understands this. He's had his abilities to walk and talk, much less to make music, taken from him; and he has fought not only to regain those musical abilities but to continually improve them beyond what he originally had achieved. He takes nothing for granted, and neither should we. If our students absorb some of that, their music--no matter how good--will grow exponentially better. Commit to what you want, or get out of the way of those who will!

RVAJazz: Considering the high-profile talent that passed through Richmond, as well as the national attention that our local groups are getting, how do you view Richmond's place in the national/international Jazz community?

AG: A lot of musical folks know about the active creative scene in Richmond, in and outside of VCU. And of course, with the recent highs attained by Rams Basketball, few of us have to explain what the initials VCU stand for these days!

But I moved here from the Chicago area in large part because I'd discovered in 2001 how Richmond, like the New Orleans scene I'd grown up in, appreciates the artistic culture, likes new attempts at expressive growth, tolerates the occasional musical mistake, loves a good time, and will spread the word about someone doing good things. Richmond has a vibe that few cities have--and fewer still when it comes to embracing even the creative activities of college students cutting their teeth on new artistic projects in town.

I'm one of very, very many people who are doing what they can to promote that scene and to infuse it with more activity and more publicity. In my case, I inject VCU Jazz students into that scene as much as I can and highlight what they do. And with that, I do my best to infuse our students with business sense so that they can start tasting how to build their careers as young entrepreneurs.

Our alumni who stick around Richmond do a great job of creating their own opportunities, and it inspires our students to do the same. I tell them they'll likely need to travel if they're going to make a musical career, but Richmond is a great place for starting things up; so few want to leave very soon. Now a group such as Fight The Big Bull can capitalize on headquartering and recording here while traveling outwards.

I see this synergy in Richmond continuing. Far more "name" artists want to stop here and collaborate than we can bring in or that local talent can host. Richmond has been well noticed. As my self-made branding for Richmond goes: "Richmond: more art per square inch than any town its size." And if the city would just jump on board and market itself as the creative explosion it is, we'd have an exponential jump in tourism--Austin, Texas-style.

Not bad for a city a day's drive from half the population of the United States!

Visit VCU Music and VCU Jazz online

photo by David Bartolomi

Second City Slider

Bryan Hooten — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 10:00:02 +0000

Editor's note: Jeb Bishop is an established trombonist on the Chicago jazz scene and beyond, having regularly performed with artists such as Ken Vandermark, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Peter Brötzmann, Jeff Albert, and Hamid Drake. His trio recently released their newest album "2009" and will be performing alongside No BS! Brass at The Camel this Friday, September 10. Trombonist to trombonist, Bryan Hooten talked to him about his style, his background, and his philosophical hunches.

BH: It seems to me that Trombone players are a pretty tight-knit group of cats that get along really well. Do you agree, and if so, why do you suppose that is?

JB: That does seem to be the case and maybe it is because the trombone has a little bit of an 'underdog' status ... there's not much chance of being a star (although Trombone Shorty seems to be figuring it out!), so the ego/competition thing doesn't come into play so much, and we can just commisserate, drown our sorrows, talk about mouthpieces, etc.

Nowhere is this more obvious than your hosting of New Orleans trombonist Jeff Albert during the aftermath of Katrina. Could you talk a little about that relationship and the album it spawned, Lucky 7's: Pluto Junkyard.

Jeff and I had already met online and in person (when I played in New Orleans with my trio and with Brotzmann Tentet) before that, so when the storm hit I called him just to see how he was doing, and we got to talking about how it was going to kill a lot of his work for a while, and the idea just came up of him coming to Chicago to do some playing, and it grew out of that. Before Pluto Junkyard there was another CD also, called Farragut. You can check out both at lucky7s.org. The idea was to co-lead a group that was big enough and flexible enough to provide a lot of compositional/arranging/orchestration possibilities. I think the writing for it covers a lot of different kinds of ground.

You were born in the south (North Carolina). Do you feel like that upbringing has influenced your musical voice?

It must have, but it is hard to say how. I didn't grow up surrounded by bluegrass or anything like that, although later on one of the bands I was in (Angels of Epistemology) dealt with that kind of obliquely. I was the first in my family to pursue music seriously and my original involvement was as a classical musician, which I don't see as tied to Southern culture particularly.

But there is a certain kind of grittiness that has always attracted me in music and that I think I try to put across, that I think you could also find in certain Southern music. And so many important jazz musicians were from the South that there is probably a cultural strain there also.

Could you talk a little about this trio, its formation and the unique compositional/improvisational options inherent in the trombone, bass and drums combination?

With a trio you give up some orchestrational options, but what you gain is a lot of flexibility and mobility, and the chance for the music to have maximum spontaneity and to be reinvented in performance. In terms of timbre, the trombone/bass combination is one I have always enjoyed -- I like playing duos with bass players -- so that feels comfortable to me. And Frank and Jason are both wide open in terms of how they approach their instruments coloristically and in terms of the role the instrument can play in the band. That is important to me, because a big challenge of a trio is for it to not sound kind of the same all the time.

I have to say you have a truly unique sound and approach to the trombone. What drew you to this instrument?

I started in public school band programs when I was 9 or 10. I wanted to play trumpet at first but they guided me toward the trombone, maybe because they needed more trombone players! But I loved it right away. I just remember being attracted to a certain kind of crackling or splattering attack I heard brass instruments make, and I am still trying to make that sound!

Like many young trombonists, you were on the path towards becoming an orchestral player. What happened?

I reached a point at which it seemed to me that to stay on that path felt too narrow. I was very young at the time and had I had more knowledge and insight I might have realized that I could also learn about and pursue other things while working on being a classical player, but at the time, and in the music school environment I was in, that did not seem like a realistic option. So I left music school, but began checking out other musical areas pretty much right away.

Chicago seems to be a fertile breeding ground for forward-thinking trombonists (you, Ray Anderson, George Lewis). Why do you think that is?

Ray and George were in school together as kids for a while in Hyde Park (I think that is correct), so there must have been something special happening there! But I would say more that Chicago has been a center for forward-thinking musicians in general for a long time, and I have been very fortunate to be involved in some way in that tradition.

How is the Chicago scene these days?

Right now it seems about as good as it has ever been; there are lots of places to play and a good spirit of inquiry and collaboration among the musicians, a willingness to look across genre boundaries, and not much in the way of the unhealthy aspects of competitiveness.

You have multiple degrees in philosophy. Of the thinkers you studied or continue to study, who would have made the best trombone player?

This wins the award for most original interview question so far! Unfortunately I do not have a snappy answer. Wittgenstein was apparently an excellent amateur clarinetist and a world-class whistler, but his musical tastes seem to have been pretty narrow. Heidegger would probably have had some kind of woolly issues about technology and music. In general it is hard to imagine most philosophers loosening up enough to be good trombonists, so maybe it would have to be some sort of postmodernist. Or, actually, I can imagine Socrates being good at it -- he was a good improviser and a champion drinker.

Or maybe the best answer is George Lewis, who I think we can call a philosopher (if he wouldn't mind my saying so), and who is in fact one of the best trombone players.

Who, among trombone players, (besides George Lewis) would make the best philosopher?

Giancarlo Schiaffini certainly looks the part. A lot of trombonists seem to have a certain theoretical/intellectual bent, though.

View event details

Visit Jeb Bishop on the web

photo by Fred Lonberg-Holm

Slide and seek: eighth blackbird is it

Bryan Hooten — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 14:51:12 +0000

We've got a pair of tickets to eighth blackbird's performance to give away! Enter to win the tickets here. Contest closes at 3pm TODAY!

eighth blackbird, artists-in-residence at the University of Richmond and the University of Chicago, return to the Modlin Center on Wednesday after a week-and-a-half of frenzied travel. Their recent journeys have put them in front of 300 six-year-olds in Erie, Pennsylvania, a concert audience in Winchester, Virginia, and conservatory students at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia. Check out their twitter feed at @eighthblackbird for a masterful and often hilarious use of technology to document their adventures. Even in this era of widespread multi-media, genre-splicing, mash-up style experimentation, Wednesday night’s performance offers a unique and mind-bending experience. Slide is a new musical-theater work composed by a rock-influenced electric guitarist, based on a vocalist’s written reflection on a psychological experiment, and performed, both musically and theatrically, by of one of the world’s elite ensembles plus said composer/guitarist and vocalist. You can see/hear for yourself how all this works on eighth blackbird’s website. In anticipation of the Virginia premier of Slide, I spoke with eighth blackbird’s flutist, Tim Munro about memory, movement and, of course, music.

For our readers who may be unfamiliar with Slide’s subject matter, can you briefly describe the psychological experiment that serves as the foundation of this piece?

Slide was inspired by a psychology experiment that co-creator Rinde Eckert read about years ago. Subjects were shown out-of-focus slides, which were then snapped into focus; the time it took them to recognize what was pictured was measured. The experiment showed that subjects took much longer to correctly identify what was pictured when they were first asked to guess the answer. Apparently we are in general more likely to defend our original thoughts about something, despite the evidence to the contrary. The experiment is a good illustration of our all-too-human nature. As the character Renard says, talking about the broader implications of the experiment: “So a lifelong conservative will tend to see only the evidence that confirms his or her beliefs; a lifelong liberal will tend to see only the evidence that confirms his or her beliefs.”

The word Slide seems to have multiple meanings in this context. Care to elaborate on a few of those?

The character Renard sings at once point that things "slide into focus," and the work as a whole is broadly about Renard's life gradually "sliding into focus" for him. Much like the subjects in his experiment, he calls into question elements of his life about which he had been completely certain. Unpleasant moments in his personal life, which are blurred at the beginning of the work, gradually reveal themselves to Renard and to the audience during the course of the work.

How are the above elements reflected in Steven Mackey's music?

The piece is part song cycle, part rock opera. Steve has thought a lot about the long-term trajectory of the work, pacing it so that the big moments, like the rock song "Stare" and the final, quiet, beautiful art song "Lonely Motel," really tell in a meaningful way. Musically, the piece is draws on a huge range of styles, which is typical for Steve: from complex sections of intimate chamber music to powerful rock ballads, but always with the most finely honed compositional craft.

This piece is also very influenced by the unique voice and performance style of singer/actor Rinde Eckert, who wrote the text for this work. Rinde is a powerhouse of a performer, the sort of uncategorizable stage animal whose very presence on stage is totally transfixing.

What is eighth blackbird's history with musical-theater performance?

As a chamber music group we are quite unique in our commitment to memorization. Performing without music gives us the freedom to move around the stage, opening us up to the possibility of meaningful collaboration with artists from the world of theater and dance. We've staged productions of Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire with a life-size, Bunraku puppet; worked with a dance choreographer on creating a theatrical expression of an hour of new music by the Bang on a Can composers; worked with an interactive digital artist to give visual expression to a work by his composer wife.

Our work with other artistic mediums allows us to better engage with an audience that is increasingly comfortable in a visual world, an audience that will go to see a new movie or piece of theater but won't go to hear a new work of classical chamber music.

Could you elaborate on the musician/actor dual role that each performer will be playing, will there be dialogue spoken by the musicians, etc?

In Slide the musicians of eighth blackbird play a chamber group that Renard looks forward to rehearsing with every Thursday evening. We also serve variously as Renard’s imagined subjects or other phantoms within the protagonist’s curious world and psyche. So we do speak and sing at various points, as well as moving around the stage to better highlight relationships in the music. For example, our cellist, Nick, sits next to Rinde Eckert to play a moving, intimate duet with him.

Who is the best actor in eighth blackbird?

Um, wow. I think it is fair to say that we are all comfortable moving around the stage with our instruments, but once you take them away and we have no "security blanket" we all struggle with a certain stiffness on stage. What we've found is that if we move in a natural, everyday way on stage it doesn't necessarily read as "natural," and there is a certain type of "actorly" movement that is required to read to an audience as "normal." This is hard for non-actors to capture.

How did the musicians work on their acting chops in preparation for the performance?

Early in the process we worked with Rinde on a number of acting exercises, much of them to do with operating parts of the body independent from other parts, or with creating super-organized stage movement that the audience only gradually reads as such. Later, working with director Mark deChiazza, our movement became much more focused, as he concentrated us on finding ways to move in a very purposeful, efficient way. He calls this sort of work "chore-eography," as it gives us tasks/chores to do, and we find the most effective means of doing them.

How does the fact that Steven Mackey is an active performer on electric guitar influence his compositional style?

Aside from the influence of a wide variety of rock music genres on Steve's music, there is a certain "guitar-ness" that can be detected in some of the "figuration" in the ensemble writing. Steve actually plays in the ensemble with us in Slide, and the addition of electric guitar to the normally acoustic eighth blackbird ensemble adds a totally new and radically different color to the palette.

What kinds of similarities/differences do you find in composers that also perform versus those that do not?

Composer/performers are much more aware the practical aspects of performing their music, and Steve is a great example of a multifaceted artist who is totally open and flexible in his working methods, and will ask us for advice and take constructive criticism.

Slide will be performed on Wednesday, March 3 at 7:30pm in the Camp Concert Hall, Booker Hall of Music at the University of Richmond. Tickets are $20 (with discounts available for seniors, children, and UR employees and students) and can purchased online or by calling the Modlin Center box office at 804-289-8980.

A classical music tragic, Tim likes to write and speak about music, and in an earlier life was Publications Coordinator of the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra.

Bryan Hooten is a trombonist, composer and educator living in Richmond, VA. He plays with Ombak, Fight the Big Bull, No BS Brass, Verbatim, and various other groups. He teaches Music Theory and Small Jazz Ensembles at VCU and directs the Jazz Band at James River High School. He also serves on the faculty of the Virginia Governor’s School for the Humanities and Visual and Performing Arts.

Trio of Justice: Without hesitation

Bryan Hooten — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 11:00:44 +0000

The other day, I ambushed Trio of Justice (formerly R2DToo), a relatively new band comprised of Reggie Pace, Reginald Chapman, and Devonne Harris, after one of their rehearsals. We got to talking about the band, their music, their new name and what makes Richmond such a trombone-friendly city. Devonne even talks a little smack, ensuring his place in the RVA Trombone mafia for years to come. They all speak with the same humor, spontaneity and sophistication that inspire their music. Trio of Justice will perform at RVAJazzfest this Saturday along with the Adam Larrabee Trio and Ombak+Ray Anderson.

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/8870703[/vimeo]

View more photos of Trio of Justice on Flickr

RVAJazzfest featuring Ray Anderson & Ombak, Adam Larrabee Trio, and Trio of Justice takes place on Saturday, February 6, 2010, at 9pm at The Camel, 1621 W Broad St., Richmond VA. Click here to purchase tickets.

Tim Berne: RVAJazzfest Featured Performer

Bryan Hooten — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 10:59:30 +0000

Our RVAJazzfest featured performer is Tim Berne. Berne will be teaming up with Bryan Hooten's Ombak while in town to rehearse, perform at this event, and record an album. They'll be playing material by Berne and by Bryan and other band members (who, by the way, are Trey Pollard, Cameron Ralston, and Brian Jones). More recommended reading is my interview with Bryan from December in which we discussed Berne's influence on him. --Ed.

I emailed Tim Berne the following questions and he emailed back within a couple of hours. Actually, this was a rather slow response for him. He's like a quick-draw gunfighter with email. When putting together the details of his part in RVAJazzfest, only minutes, sometimes seconds would go by between messages. I think he has an iPhone. I asked about some of his early records, his career as a perpetual bandleader, his love/hate relationship with the New York Knicks and what he thinks of Richmond. When reading the responses, one can sense a zen-koan like economy, directness and humor, qualities that also pervade his playing and writing.

The first time I heard your playing was on Ray Anderson's Big Band Record, which featured the George Gruntz Concert Jazz Band and home-state trumpet hero, John D'Earth. Can you talk about that sesson, which also included many of your current collaborators (Herb Robertson, Ellery Eskelin, Drew Gress, Tom Rainey)?

I love Ray and the others but I may have been the wrong man for the right job

Can you talk a little bit about the fact that you've spent the vast majority of your career as a band-leader, rather than as a sideman?

I started playing quite late and most of my heroes werte also composer/bandleaders so I thought that 's what everyone did. Kind of naive at the time

Throughout your incredibly varied projects, you seem to draw from a defined stable of musicians. How do you go about choosing players for each new band?

personality and and a big dose of individuality...sense of humor doesn't hurt either

You said about your early career and study that "The more I learned, the less confident I got." (From your interview with Ethan Iverson). Can you elaborate on that statement a little?

yeah I seem to become more insecure the more "established" I become....not sure why

What was it like working with Zorn at the Soho Music Gallery?

fun and educational

What's a day in the life of Tim Berne like?

Hmmm...starts with a lot of coffee after not much sleep.....lot's of dreaming about musical possibilities and hopefully acting on the dreams during the day....more coffee.....movies and `food

The story goes that you didn't pick up the saxophone until after hurting your ankle in an intramural basketball game while in college. Any interest in a pickup game while you're here?

oooh...bad knees

At the time of this writing, your team, the Knicks, are 16-22. What do they need to do to turn it around and make the playoffs?

get Dwyane Wade and GARnett....coach..Jabbar?

This is your second visit to Richmond. What's your impression of our fair city?

nice houses and people

A couple of other quotes for you to elaborate on, if you want.

"I always feel like I'm the worst player in the band." (From your trio workshop at VCU a while back.)

I think it speaks for itself

"I'm not really known for my on-stage banter."

wow

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waayvJrS_BY[/youtube]
Tim Berne with Tomasz Stanko

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CwYFDsHyhk[/youtube]
Tim Berne on Night Music

RVAJazzfest featuring Tim Berne & Ombak, Adam Larrabee Trio, and Trio of Justice takes place on Saturday, February 6, 2010, at 9pm at The Camel, 1621 W Broad St., Richmond VA. Click here to purchase tickets.

A serving of SPAM, courtesy of eighth blackbird

Bryan Hooten — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 16:00:47 +0000

Equally at home performing Pulitzer Prize winning compositions by household-name composers or creating soundscapes from amplified tables covered in sand, eighth blackbird continues to solidify its reputation is one of the most accomplished and innovative ensembles in the world. On Wednesday, September 16th, this Grammy Award winning ensemble returns to its residence at the University of Richmond to perform SPAM, a concert that explores the relationship between rock music and twenty-first century composition. In anticipation of the event, I spoke with the ensemble’s flutist, Timothy Munro, about music, processed meats, and video games.

How would you describe eighth blackbird to someone who has never heard the group before?

eighth blackbird aims to bring the always entertaining, sometimes shocking, often just plain weird diversity of new classical music to a broad audience. We play from memory, incorporate theatrical elements into our shows, and work with artists as diverse as drummer Glenn Kotche and choreographer Susan Marshall.

What, in your opinion, are some of those ways that rock music has influenced classical composition in the twenty-first century, and what can listeners expect on September 16th?

The grey area between rock music and classical composition has never been larger or...well...more grey. America's young classical composers, for example Missy Mazzoli or Nico Muhly, grew up listening to indie rock and heavy metal, and these influences can't help but appear in their music.

The "downtown" NYC music scene, of which the Bang on a Can composer collective is the most prominent example, has helped drive this revolution in Manhattan. One natural outgrowth of that is a New York-based label like New Amsterdam Records (brain-child of talented New York institution Judd Greenstein) consciously seeks out classical performers who straddle both worlds. But, in fact, the fruits can be heard across the country. In fact, just the other day our very first intern began working for us, a rock guitarist who caught the classical bug and whose music no doubt will show the stamp of both.

What should listeners expect for our September 16 show? They'll hear composers influenced by the hugely diverse world of popular music, but I hope that audiences won't expect to hear a rock show. Instead, eighth blackbird concerts are a bit of a wild musical roller coaster ride: from the quirky fun of Twelve Hands and SPAM to the mysterious, elusive, other-worldly sounds of Deserted Churchyards and Derive.

Would you say that classical composition has influenced rock music and, if so, how?

A whole generation of indie-rock musicians is either classically trained or have a strong interest in composers as different as Steve Reich and Kaija Saariaho. Personally, when I listen to Andrew Bird I hear the influence of Maurice Ravel, and when I listen to Sufjan Stevens I hear Philip Glass.

What kinds of new instrumental techniques have the members of eighth blackbird explored in order to play this music?

On September 16 we will be playing a piece that throws in everything but the kitchen sink. Twelve Hands is a quotation-free homage to the Beatles by hot young Dutch composer Mayke Nas. The six of us play entirely on the strings and frame of the piano using regular household items: toothpicks, credit cards, dish brushes and hammers.

Playing in eighth blackbird can be a pretty interesting "job." Apart from destroying pianos, we've had to saw wood onstage, play goose and duck calls, scream and shout and play with children's toys.

Have you performed, or do you wish you could perform in a rock or jazz club-like environment?

I wish that this could happen more often. We're a little restricted by economic issues - eighth blackbird is essentially a band for hire, and we rely on the larger fees that big, classical venues and presenters can pay, in order to make a living by playing crazy music. Also, we play music that has a huge dynamic range - it gets very loud but also very soft - and the very soft, subtle sounds do get lost among the clinking of beers and dull roar in a club setting. We're big fans of venues like New York's The Kitchen, which gives the feel of a rock venue but with a more conventional classical audience setup, and Le Poisson Rouge, which in two years has built a hip, young, excited audience for a huge variety of new music.

A significant portion of music seems to focus on England's contribution to the rock and roll canon (The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Mark-Anthony Turnage). Coincidence?

Good point! This is coincidence, but I guess you could say that England has been the driving force behind many of rock music's revolutions, and most of the composers I know are as influenced by the Beatles as by Beethoven. There's another Englishman represented on our program as well, Thomas Ades, whose Catch is a hilarious playground game, full of taunts and teasing, enacted on- and off-stage.

How does the consistency, flavor and pop-culture relevance of SPAM the meat product inform the work, SPAM, by Marc Mellits?

Marc tends to come up with very quirky titles. I think the biggest point of confluence is that SPAM (the meat product and the piece) doesn't take itself too seriously. We think of SPAM (the meat product) as cheap, disposable and bland. SPAM (the piece) is fast, virtuosic, direct, fun, and very funky.

Can you talk a little about Steve Reich's Double Sextet, the Pulitzer Prize it won and eighth blackbird's world premiere of that work at the University of Richmond?

Double Sextet was written for eighth blackbird in 2007, and we've been playing it all over the world since then. Steve doesn't write for single instruments, so he decided to double each of our instruments (flute, clarinet, violin, cello, percussion and piano) for the piece. We first recorded one sextet part, and played the other sextet part with this pre-recorded mirror-image of ourselves. The piece is fast and driving in the outer movements, and atypically lyrical in the middle section. We were very excited that the piece won a Pulitzer, and feel that Steve was very much overdue! Where was the Pulitzer for Music for 18 Musicians? And for Tehillim? About bloody time!!

From the recording session for the Reich:

Considering the impending release of The Beatles' Rock Band game, what would Rock Band: eighth blackbird be like?

This is a deeply important question! Our second home, University of Richmond, offered Rock Band as a class one semester, and we definitely spent some seriously crazy time in that little, airless room channeling Led Zeppelin and AC/DC. We've been thinking about ways to include Rock Band into our live act, and admittedly it would be pretty bloody difficult, but that doesn't mean we'll give up hope!!

Visit eighth blackbird on the web at http://www.eighthblackbird.com
More info on the Modlin Center for the Arts here

eighth blackbird: SPAM
Wednesday, September 16, 2009  at 7:30 pm

Modlin Center for the Arts
Camp Concert Hall, Booker Hall of Music
28 Westhampton Way
Richmond VA 23173
(804) 289-8980

Ticket Prices : Adult: $20 , Senior (65+): $18,  UR Employee: $16 , Child (0-12): $10,  UR Student: Free

Tickets are still available and college students can get their hands on one for only $10.

Tim Munro: Born in Brisbane, Australia, Tim studied flute at Oberlin College, Queensland Conservatorium (Australia) and Australian National Academy of Music. His teachers included Michel Debost, Margaret Crawford and Patrick Nolan.
Tim has played with professional orchestras, chamber groups and new music ensembles around Australia. Highlights include concerto performances with the Queensland Orchestra, solo performances at the Melbourne Arts Festival and Bangalow Festival, and recordings for Australian radio and commercial CD release. He also participated in the Carnegie Hall Training Workshops and the Pacific Music Festival.
Composers he has worked with include Elliott Carter, Oliver Knussen, Aaron Jay Kernis, Joseph Schwantner, Tania Leon, Peter Sculthorpe and Brett Dean.
A classical music tragic, Tim likes to write and speak about music, and in an earlier life was Publications Coordinator of the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra.

Bryan Hooten is a trombonist, composer and educator living in Richmond, VA. He plays with Ombak, Fight the Big Bull, No BS Brass, Verbatim, and various other groups. He teaches Music Theory and Small Jazz Ensembles at VCU and directs the Jazz Band at James River High School. He also serves on the faculty of the Virginia Governor’s School for the Humanities and Visual and Performing Arts. http://www.ombakmusic.com

Framing the Void: IV

Bryan Hooten — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 11:30:04 +0000

Sing, hum or otherwise produce your favorite tune, or any tune for that matter, even a tune you hate.

What kinds of sensations do you experience?

If you’re vocalizing, you probably feel your throat and face vibrating a little, and you will eventually feel the need to breathe again. You might also feel a little self-conscious, depending on who’s around.

Now think about your tune for a moment.

What words come to mind? Besides words like “happy” or “sad,” you might be thinking with terms like “up” and “down,” “short” and “long.” If someone asked you to sing the beginning of the tune, you would know “where” to start, likewise with the end. We might just as easily talk about the beginning or end of a road. A unity of sense perception reveals itself here in that we use some of the same words to describe both time and space. The very experience of being human centers around our awareness of events and things, along with the void, sit between them. We seem to have an intuitive sense of the void, a void that our minds constantly and compulsively divide, rearrange, and reassemble. Like the human experience, all music, including the tune you just sang, plays with these dimensions. When listening to or playing music, we constantly experience sound and silence, space and time in combination, and nowhere is this play more apparent than in a musical line. But first, a brief word about words.

Speech, the most ubiquitous of human sonic acts, involves placing one sound, one word after another to create both contour and cadence. Up/down contours are intimately familiar to us. Just imagine how many different ways there are to ask the question “How are you?” Different combinations of inflection and cadence can give the words overtones of compassion, sarcasm or puzzlement. In addition to what we say and how we say it, the spaces we take to breathe and to listen give our sentences meaning, humor, gravitas and power. It is no surprise, then, that most of what sticks with us about music has to do with line, the tune, the melody of a song or a guitar riff, musical ideas that place one sound after another.

In the previous installments of Framing the Void, we explored the ways in which music 1. Defines a period of time, 2. Manipulates our perception of that time’s passing through rhythm, and 3. Defines space through fundamental pitches with overtones. The combinations of these elements results in what we can call a musical line: A succession of single pitches, one after another, often with spaces in between. Imagine time running along the horizontal X axis and space running along the vertical Y axis. A musical line “moves” through both axes, which is only possible when we recognize both points and space. In fact, when we draw a line on paper, or listen to a piece of music, we generally experience more space than anything else. We seem to have a fundamental, instinctual awareness of the void’s infinite possibility but gravitate towards the relatively minor divisions that lines create. As mentioned above, all musical ideas have elements of time and space within them, yet lines play with both in tandem most explicitly. These lines may take the form of melody, counterpoint, bass-line and there is even a concept, known as linear drumming, which allows non-pitched percussion instruments to carve melodic shapes out of negative space (see below). The following are a few examples of the ways composers and improvisers use line in music.

The opening melodic statement of Bela Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra expands with each repetition, creating dramatic sense of space. Woodwinds hover high above as the low strings rise from the depths.

[audio:http://rvanews.net/sounds/2009/06/Bartokftv.mp3]

On Aquas De Marco, Elis Regina and Antonio Carlos Jobim’s conversational vocals cut an almost horizontal line across the sonic space while the bass and piano move steadily downward.

[audio:http://rvanews.net/sounds/2009/06/ElisAndTomftv.mp3]

On Blues Connotation, Ornette Coleman’s saxophone creates melodically playful knots, twists and turns, giving the listener a sense of time and space bursting forth and retreating. In contrast, the bass marks steady time.

[audio:http://rvanews.net/sounds/2009/06/Colemanftv.mp3]

No exploration of line would be complete without a nod to J.S. Bach. In the prelude to his Cello Suite no. 2 in D minor, a single line occupies the totality of the musical experience. Interestingly, the listener also gets a sense of the ‘implied’ harmony as the cello outlines notes of chords in succession, alternating steps and leaps.

[audio:http://rvanews.net/sounds/2009/06/Bachftv.mp3]

The bass line from Parliament’s Flash Light gives a clearly defined, super-funky sense of time and space. The line moves down then up at regular intervals and, like all great bass lines, provides a steady foundation for “cosmic slop” swirling above it. Notice how, at around 1:04 the line reverses directions to signify a kind of ‘breakdown’ section.

[audio:http://rvanews.net/sounds/2009/06/Parliamentftv.mp3]

On Cissy Strut by the Meters, the bass and guitar plunge from high to low over Zigaboo Modeliste’s “linear” drum groove. The groove is called linear because the drummer almost never plays any two sounds simultaneously, just as a melody leaves one pitch before moving to another.

[audio:http://rvanews.net/sounds/2009/06/Metersftv.mp3]

Despite the fact that music has evolved into countless forms and has been intellectualized, studied, codified and recognized as high art, even its most complicated manifestations embody the basic experience of being human, moving through space and time. Rhythm, harmony and line play with and rearrange these elements just like our minds do when we see white clouds against a blue sky, recognize the tone of a friend’s voice, wait at the doctor’s office or feel the cold wind of an on-rushing storm. Our awareness of these ‘things’ is only possible, however, because of our instinctual conception of a universally empty space, the void. It is interesting to note that all the names we give to things, people and locations or the spectrums of sound and light and movement we fracture to create art always point back toward a common experience, something we can listen to, see and feel together. The awareness that we merely rearrange this void, a space we never truly leave and can never fill up, is humbling indeed.

Bryan Hooten is a trombonist, composer and educator living in Richmond, VA. He plays with Ombak, Fight the Big Bull, No BS Brass, Verbatim, and various other groups. He teaches Music Theory and Small Jazz Ensembles at VCU and directs the Jazz Band at James River High School. He also serves on the faculty of the Virginia Governor’s School for the Humanities and Visual and Performing Arts. For more information on Bryan Hooten and Ombak‘s debut album, Framing the Void, please visit www.ombakmusic.com and http://twitter.com/Ombakmusic

Framing the Void: Part III

Bryan Hooten — Mon, 11 May 2009 02:12:01 +0000

In parts I and II of this series we explored the ways in which music frames and manipulates our experience of time. Music creates these boundaries through its definite starting and ending points and though the phenomenon of rhythm, whereby the repetition sound events give us a sense of the rate of time’s passing. In the West, we generally conceptualize time as running along the horizontal dimension, from left to right. Having briefly touched on the ways that music lives in this dimension, let us turn our attention to the vertical.

Most music students are taught that melody occurred before harmony. For the sake of argument, I will contend that humans recognized harmony first, but maybe without knowing it. We can loosely define harmony as the simultaneous sounding of different pitches. As we move about in our world, we are constantly bombarded by ambient sounds, ticking clocks, ringing telephones and bells, wind moving through the trees and people’s voices. We describe these sounds as high or low, harsh or mellow, and so on. Unless you are listening to a sine wave, you are very rarely hearing only a single frequency in any sound. Almost every sound has its own most-audible frequency called the fundamental, but without getting too nerdy, we also hear all the other frequencies, called overtones, “above” it and some “below.” I think that humans experience harmony first because the combinations of pitches (fundamentals and their overtones) along with the way they are attacked give different sounds their identifiable quality.

A fundamental pitch is the note you sing or the note the bell rings or the note the instrumentalist plays. We describe “high” pitches as those that are closer to the “top” of the audible range and “low” pitches as those closer to the “bottom.” A fundamental pitch divides the negative space of the total range into two parts, whatever is above and below. Low pitches give us a sense of lots of space above them while high notes do the opposite. You can picture fundamental pitches as drawing horizontal line through the vertical audible range, just like the beginning of a piece draws a vertical line through the horizontal experience of time. Every fundamental pitch creates overtones above it that are arranged in the harmonic series. These overtones play with our sense of space just like rhythm does with time. Musicians describe harmony with words like close, tight, spread, open, even and so on, further affirming the concept’s relationship to negative space. If you are alone in the room or if those around you don’t mind if you make some noise you can experience this phenomenon yourself.

Sing any note on the syllable “Ah.” Make sure you are getting a nice, resonant sound. Your face should feel like it’s vibrating a little. Now try to “look around” at the sound with your mind’s ear. Depending on how high or low your fundamental pitch is you will be able to hear at least one other note sounding somewhere above the one you are singing. That note will probably be an octave, a minor seventh, a fifth or a third above the fundamental. Musicians call these numbers intervals and they measure the space between sounding pitches relative to notes in a scale. Starting with “Ah,” hold the same pitch but make an “Oh” and then and “Oo” sound. If you listen closely you will notice that the loudest overtone sounding above your fundamental pitch will move “downward” as you change vowel sounds. It should sound something like this…

[audio:http://rvanews.net/sounds/2009/05/article-down.mp3]

Notice that, towards the end, when I make the Ooo-est possible sound, more, even higher notes jump out at the top. Clearly I am not a singer and this is not some special vocal technique or digital effect. What you are hearing is just a slowed down version of what happens when we use vowels in speech. Hopefully you can now hear how combinations of pitches (harmony) give meaning to our aural experience.

The above example was just myself on my lap-top microphone. Here’s the real thing from the Tuvan tradition. Notice how the singer keeps the fundamental pitch mostly constant while creating melody with the overtones.

Steppe Kagyraa sung by Sevek Aldyn-Ool

[audio:http://rvanews.net/sounds/2009/05/SteppeKargyraa.mp3]

You will find this phenomenon out in the inanimate world as well. If you are near a land-line phone, pick it up and listen to the dial tone. It is really at least two tones, an F and an A. Oddly enough, I’ve heard a lot of commercial air conditioning units resonate at a Bb, with an Ab hanging out somewhere far above it. The way these overtones spring to life at the attack of a note when spoken, sung or played tells us who is talking, what instrument is playing or to get off the railroad tracks. We can now hear how harmony (the interaction of fundamentals, overtones and negative space) plays a huge role in orienting and giving meaning to our experience.

Here are a few examples of how composers and improvisers manipulate our experience of harmony to create timbre, color, texture and myriad other effects in music

Notice the open, shimmering intervals used by Radiohead on the track, Hunting Bears, from the album, Amnesiac. Listen for the overtone phenomenon that was present in the above vocal example.

Hunting Bears by Radiohead

[audio:http://rvanews.net/sounds/2009/05/HuntingBears.mp3]

On his version of Creole Love Call, trombone legend Albert Mangelsdorff sings along with himself, alternating between harmonic and melodic statements.

Creole Love Call by Albert Mangelsdorff

[audio:http://rvanews.net/sounds/2009/05/Mangelsdorff.mp3]

Listen to oscillation between “bright” and “cloudy” harmonies in Igor Stravinsky’s Symphonies of Wind Instruments.

Symphonies of Wind Instruments by Igor Stravinsky

[audio:http://rvanews.net/sounds/2009/05/Stravinsky.mp3]

The final installment of Framing the Void (coming in June) will deal with the combination of horizontal and vertical space, namely, musical line.

Bryan Hooten is a trombonist, composer and educator living in Richmond, VA. He plays with Ombak, Fight the Big Bull, No BS Brass, Verbatim, and various other groups. He teaches Music Theory and Small Jazz Ensembles at VCU and directs the Jazz Band at James River High School. He also serves on the faculty of the Governor’s School for the Humanities and Visual and Performing Arts. He can be seen every Wednesday at Cous Cous (900 W. Franklin) performing with either Ombak or Fight the Big Bull. Ombak‘s debut album, Framing the Void, can be purchased at www.ombakmusic.com.

Framing the Void: Part II

Bryan Hooten — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 11:30:15 +0000

In Framing the Void: Part I we explored the way that music divides our existence into what we experience before, during and after a piece. We also explored the relationship between this experience and the way our bodies spontaneously divide our reality into things, events, colors and individuals. Strangely, it is this shattering of reality that gives us common experience and allows different people to show up at the same place at the same time or to converse about the same topic.

Within the start/end boundaries of a piece of music, composers and improvisers play with the negative space that this time measures, creating the illusion that time is passing more quickly, more slowly or with more wrinkles than it actually has. All this negative space manipulation can be summed up in the term rhythm. Repeated sonic events like the tap of a drum or long note from a violin break silence into sections on a smaller scale so that the performer and listener can have the common experience of this rhythm. The following pieces explore the ways that rhythm manipulates our perception of time and in most cases I have chosen examples with limited melodic and harmonic motion in the hopes that the pulses will be most apparent characteristic. For added proof of this phenomenon, try not to look at the clock on the player while you listen to the examples and see if you can list them in order of length. Look for the answer at the end of the article*.

Get Up I Feel Like Being a Sex Machine: James Brown

This classic track from James Brown perfectly illustrates how symmetrically distributed negative space feels wonderfully natural, like a heartbeat. Underneath Brown’s call and response vocals, the drums, guitar and bass carve out a relentless groove, each instrument spending equal time in sound and silence.

[audio:http://rvanews.net/sounds/2009/04/Getup.mp3|titles=Getup|artists=James Brown]

Da Pacem Domine: Arvo Pärt

Slower tempos allow sonic events to unfold at a glacial pace, stretching our perception of time’s passing. Some music, such as Gyorgy Ligeti’s piece Lontano, discussed in my earlier article, As Rome Burns, even seeks to stop our perception of time. While not totally static, the piece Da Pacem Domine by Estonian composer Arvo Pärt creates an almost imperceptibly slow, but natural pulse. Try inhaling on one note and exhaling on the next.

[audio:http://rvanews.net/sounds/2009/04/Part.mp3|titles=Part|artists=Da Pacem Domine]

Blues to Elvin: John Coltrane

Perhaps the most obvious choice for illustrating negative space in jazz would be Miles Davis but instead, I decided to go with a lesser-known recording by an equally ubiquitous artist. On this track from the album Coltrane Plays the Blues, Coltrane utilizes two dimensions of negative space. His tenor saxophone slides beautifully ahead and behind of the steady, walking pulse laid down by drums and bass, pushing and pulling the “time.”

On a small scale, his playing creates tiny pockets of tension and release with each pulse. On a large scale, he spends significant amount of time not playing, following the natural rhythms of a good conversationalist. Each breath simultaneously punctuates the previous phrase and cleanses the space for the next idea. This track represents a fascinating use of negative space by an artist known for his impossibly dense improvisations.

[audio:http://rvanews.net/sounds/2009/04/Blues_to_Elvin.mp3|titles=Blues to Elvin|artists=John Coltrane]

Bragada: Tito Puente

This example from Tito Puente gives us the impression of time’s passing at a steady rate through the combination of various poly-rhythms. We hear the longest pulse from the low conga, while various other instruments play what are called sub-divisions of the beat, some divided by two, some divided by three. Think about the lines on a yard stick that divide it into feet, then into inches etc…Initially, the voices emphasize the smallest subdivision but notice how, at about the 1:20 mark, the vocalists switch to a more lilting feeling instead of the rapid delivery of the opening. They create this effect by shifting their emphasis to a larger sub-division of the beat. While the overall pulse remains constant, this ensemble shows how even a slight rearranging of negative space can change the entire feeling of a piece.

[audio:http://rvanews.net/sounds/2009/04/Bragada.mp3|titles=Bragada|artists=Tito Puente]

Second String Quartet, Movement III: Gyorgy Ligeti

In the third movement of Ligeti’s Second String Quartet, marked Come Un Meccanismo Di Precisione, each instrument repeats a single note but at different tempos respectively. Some patterns accelerate while others decelerate or remain constant. Out of an initially disorienting web of sound, coherent rhythms pass in and out of phase and these mechanical processes use time to destroy our natural perception of it.

[audio:http://rvanews.net/sounds/2009/04/Ligeti.mp3|titles=Ligeti|artists=Ligeti]

Panasonic Youth: Dillinger Escape Plan

Here is an example of a piece with almost no truly negative space. The vast majority of the sonic events pass with extreme rapidity. Switching between pulses at a break-neck pace, rarely expanding or contracting smoothly, this music creates an experience less like our heartbeats and more like the random firings of our neurons. Listening to math metal is not so unlike trying to pay attention to the myriad, unrelated thoughts that constantly rise and fall in even the most peaceful mind. Watch out, this is LOUD!

[audio:http://rvanews.net/sounds/2009/04/Panasonic.mp3|titles=Panasonic|artists=Dillinger Escape Plan]

In the above examples, we can see how composers and improvisers manipulate our perception of time, or rather the negative space, framed by the beginning and end of a piece. Through music, we tap into this negative space with pulses as steady as our resting heartbeats, as fast as our most frantic moments and as slow as our most relaxed breathing. The above examples represent only a few of the ways that music frames the void of silence and each new composition or improvisation gives us a different common experience. In the next article, we will explore negative space along the vertical plane through music’s use of melody and harmony.

*Trick question! All excerpts were exactly 1:54 long. Let me know how your list came out!

Bryan Hooten is a trombonist, composer and educator living in Richmond, VA. He plays with Ombak, Fight the Big Bull, No BS Brass, Verbatim, and various other groups. He teaches Music Theory and Small Jazz Ensembles at VCU and directs the Jazz Band at James River High School. He also serves on the faculty of the Governor’s School for the Humanities and Visual and Performing Arts. He can be seen every Wednesday at Cous Cous (900 W. Franklin) performing with either Ombak or Fight the Big Bull. Ombak will be celebrating the release of its debut album, Framing the Void on April 29th 9:30 pm at Cous Cous.

Framing the void: Part I

Bryan Hooten — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 13:25:17 +0000

Place your fingers on your neck and feel your pulse. Continue to do this for a moment, and for that moment, stop reading this article.

Pay attention to your breathing without trying to control it. Continue doing this for a moment and for that moment, stop reading this article.

Our hearts beat in perfect time. We breathe in and out in regular intervals. When we walk or run our feet spend equal time traveling through the air, as do our arms. We try our best to keep our hours of sleeping and waking regular. Nearly identical events distributed evenly through time make up many of the human body’s basic functions. Our health is often determined not by these events themselves but by their regularity, by the space between them. Take, for example, the concepts of the heart rate, the running pace, and the circadian rhythm. Many of our body’s functions keep us alive by framing a negative space. Since it is the product of the human body, music uses nearly identical events distributed through a negative space, time in this case, to create meaning.

This is the first in a four part series of articles exploring music’s relationship with negative space. For simplicity’s sake, we will deal with this negative space in two directions, horizontal (time) and vertical (melody and harmony) even though each is inextricably tied to the other. In this article we will explore the ways in which any piece of music, through its beginning and ending, creates a frame around our experience of time. In the following article, we will explore how a piece of music alters our perception of time’s passing through the rate at which it presents sonic events. We will cover similar concepts in two more articles dealing with the vertical dimension of music.

Visual artists are familiar with the idea of figure and ground. However, musicians and listeners often overlook the way that sound (figure) and silence (ground) work together to create music. Music without lyrics envelops the listener in a series of totally abstract sense impressions and is one of the few cognitive phenomena that can be experienced this way. For example, it is nearly impossible to look at a printed word in our own language and see only the shapes of the letters without inferring its meaning. On the contrary, we often listen to musical sounds without wondering what they represent, outside of themselves. These sounds are juxtaposed against silence before the beginning of the piece and after the end as well as in between sounds made during the piece. With these sounds, music - like theater, dance and motion pictures and unlike literature and visual art - must be experienced with in a given frame of time. For example, books may be left unattended for days, weeks or months. Photographs, sculpture, paintings and other forms of visual art need only be engaged in for as long as the viewer wishes. In contrast, the audience experiences music in a rigid and universal period of time, which is objectively the same for all listeners. Generally speaking, a piece of music begins when the first sound is heard and ends when the last sound dies away. Within this time-frame, the listener perceives one event happening after another. Through the use of sine waves and limiting the range of the sounded pitches, music may restrict or even negate its vertical dimension (melody and harmony). However, music can never escape its bondage to time. Since it is formed by compression waves traveling through a medium (usually air) sound can only be perceived as periods of pressure and release encountering the ear-drum with at relatively high or low frequency. This fact is analogous to the principle that points and lines are only theoretical constructs in geometry but have no objective reality. Carrying this idea out to its logical conclusion, one can easily see that, in our minds, there can be no isolated events, no isolated things, no figure without ground and vice versa. Thus, music experienced only while this nothing, silence, in the background gives it form and context.

A striking example of this framing function of music is can be found in American composer John Cage’s three movement work, 4’33”. Premiered in 1952, this piece begins when the performer sits at a piano and opens its lid. The performer then closes and opens the lid briefly to mark the end of the movements, while making no recognizable musical sound for four minutes and thirty-three seconds. Much of the fascination with this piece has been due to its allowing for ambient sound to be the music but its revolutionary concept is also primitive. This piece, like all music, exists as a frame, and in this case, a totally vacant one. I invite you to perform your own “watered down” version of this piece. If you are sitting at a desk, open or close a drawer or perform some other sound to mark the beginning of the piece and do the opposite to end it after an appropriate period of time. You have just framed time’s negative space and engaged in one of music’s most basic functions. (To see a video performance of Cage's 4'33", click here).

Traditionally notated and performed music works in much the same way, creating a time-frame with the definite beginnings and endings of the aforementioned experimental piece. The rate at which sonic information is presented within this frame plays with our sense of the passage of time while never totally escaping it, creating some experiences that are even, some that are accelerated or decelerated and some that almost destroy time altogether. In this way, no matter its level of complexity, music always affirms the experience of time and thus the experience of performing or listening to music is inextricably tied to fundamentals of human consciousness.

Bryan Hooten is a trombonist, composer and educator living in Richmond, VA. He plays with Ombak, Fight the Big Bull, No BS Brass, Verbatim, and various other groups. He teaches Music Theory and Small Jazz Ensembles at VCU and directs the Jazz Band at James River High School. He also serves on the faculty of the Governor’s School for the Humanities and Visual and Performing Arts. He can be seen every Wednesday at Cous Cous (900 W. Franklin) performing with either Ombak or Fight the Big Bull.

As Rome burns

Bryan Hooten — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 14:00:37 +0000

(The following is a guest article from local musician Bryan Hooten. Be sure to read his bio at the end of the feature to learn more about him.)

As a musician, I have often asked myself why I do what I do. That question has become all the more urgent considering the crises that loom on many fronts of our existence. While our world financial markets teeter on the brink of collapse, I am agonizing over the last few notes of a melody I am composing. As human beings continue to imperil the natural balance of our planet, I am teaching my students how to construct major and minor chords. While two men battle for the political future of our country, I am staying up late playing music at bars. While we continue to exhaust our natural resources, I spend hours trying to get everyone in my band into the recording studio on the same day. It would seem easy at this point to cast music off as a frivolous and selfish pastime, as something only to be worked on and experienced after all of our bigger problems are solved. I’m sure Maslow would agree. Are musicians fiddling while Rome burns? In a way, yes. That being said, how can I, with good conscience, continue to spend so much time making music?

There is no shortage of insufficient answers to the question of why music matters. Not surprisingly, music and the rest of the arts are often viewed as escapist, as a way to, for a while at least, forget our responsibilities, our obligations and our anxiety. Certainly there is value here. Music can have a calming, centering effect, and we put music on inside our homes and in our cars and on our iPods to provide a soundtrack while we are engaged in other activities. I must also admit that most musicians forget about the rest of the world while playing. Music is also seen as having healing qualities and the highly sophisticated field of music therapy has done wonders for those with chronic mental and physical disorders. Conversely, music is often viewed as a tool for honing the skills needed for other parts of life. Take, for example, the VH1 Save the Music Commercials. I admire the mission of this program and will always fight for the preservation of the arts in our schools, but part of the message devalues music-making itself. In the ads a group of children sit in a room playing instruments while the names of their future professions burst onto the screen above their heads. The names of jobs like lawyer, doctor, scientist, and congresswoman float above the children in white, pulsating text. Apparently not one of these children will grow up to become a musician. Furthermore, we have all seen the proof that studying music increases SAT scores and makes children better at math, spatial reasoning, and a host of other skills. While these are wonderful benefits of music education, it is tragic that many people see performance on standardized tests as the reason to play an instrument, sing or compose. Being good at math does not ensure that one will use that skill for the common good, as our current financial crisis proves beyond all doubt. I would argue that the value of music lies neither in its escapism nor in its pragmatism, but somewhere that transcends both.

Unsatisfied to merely run from the fire or to fight it with the same tools that created it, my personal answer to why I make music began to coalesce while listening to the music of the composer Gyorgy Ligeti. Doug Richards turned me on to Ligeti while I was a graduate student at VCU. Ligeti was a twentieth-century Romanian born composer who studied in Budapest, Hungary and was inspired by the work of Bartok and Stravinsky. Many will recognize Ligeti’s music from its inclusion in Stanley Kubrick’s film 2001: A Space Odyssey. I quickly bought up every recording of his music that I could find and was stunned upon listening to one of his most famous works, Lontano, a piece for orchestra composed in 1967. Lontano opens with the staggered entrance of some 14 players sounding a single pitch. I was immediately struck by the fact that, except for the shimmering tremolos in the strings, it is almost impossible to tell which instruments are playing during the opening and throughout much of the rest of the piece. I was drawn into a sonic world of pure space and color. In fact, the word Lontano means distant or remote. I immediately realized that I had to stop asking questions like “what chord is that?” “what rhythm is that?” and “what section of the piece is this?” These questions actually interfered with the listening experience and Ligeti composed the piece in such a way as to deny those questions. In the score, Ligeti gives the players the following instructions: “To avoid any effect of accentuation, it is recommended that all instruments enter with an imperceptible attack, even when this is not specifically prescribed.” The French avant-garde composer Pierre Schaeffer has shown that without hearing the attack and release of a note, it is almost impossible for the listener to identify which instrument is playing it. Ligeti’s exploitation of this fact in Lontano helped point the way to my realization of music’s value.

Listen to Lotano...

[audio:http://rvanews.net/sounds/2008/11/Lontano.mp3]

I spend much of my time as a music teacher showing my students how to listen to music, how to break the listening experience into its constituent parts: melody, harmony, rhythm, form, etc. We call one set of notes this chord and another set of notes that chord. We learn to hear and identify sets of intervals and learn to imitate melodies and rhythms. Similarly, human beings, do this constantly in the rest of our lives, dividing our experience into units of time, colors, and seasons ad infinitum. In as much as our analytical musical tools reflect the basic function of human consciousness, naming and classifying as a way to understand the world, these are valuable skills. However, the reason musicians learn these skills is hopefully not to provide the audience with a puzzle to solve. Despite the fact that I could not aurally answer many of the questions that my analytical brain was asking, Ligeti, in an interview affirms that the answers are there in Lontano.

Technically, Lontano is a completely and strictly structured polyphonic work; that is to say, there is a definite part-writing, there are vertical relationships between the parts and the individual instrumentalists play their parts as autonomous units. Through the complex interweaving and overlapping of the parts, however, the listener loses sight of them, although perhaps not entirely; that is to say, the traces of this polyphony remain audible…I would say that the polyphony is dissolved like the harmony and the tone-colour-to such an extent that it does not manifest itself, and yet is there just beneath the threshold.

Incredibly, Lontano saturates the listener with organization, using a definite compositional system to give the listener the experience of something unclassifiable. A similar technique can be found in the koan practice used in the Rinzai school of Zen Buddhism. Koans are short riddles or anecdotes, most often about Zen patriarchs, that are meant to push the student’s analytical mind to its limit, at which point the student is able to act spontaneously. One famous koan reads…

A student asked “Not even a thought has arisen; is there still a sin or not?" Master replied, "Mount Sumeru!"

Any attempt by the student to posit some logical “answer” to the koan is met by a swift rebuke by the teacher. The Zen koan turns the function of language and logic on its head, pointing back towards a direct experience instead of away. Just as the student of Zen cannot “solve” the koan with the same tools that were used to create it, the meaning of Lontano and of all music is not to be attributed to its tools but rather in the experience it reveals. This experience gives music its power.

Lontano continues onward for some eleven minutes while simultaneously destroying the listener’s sense of time. It sonically depicts bottomless chasms, clouds and rays of light while always defying any effort to label how these phenomena are occurring. The composer’s use of the analytical mind points the listener away from analytical thinking and back towards something more fundamental to our experience, more eternal. We as listeners experience this eternity when give up our reliance on categories, cause and effect and on time itself. Ligeti describes Lontano in this way…

It is music that could give the impression that it could stream on continuously, as if it had no beginning and no end; what we hear is actually a section of something that has eternally begun and will continue to sound forever.

The reason I do what I do is that music gives the musician and the listener a direct experience. This experience is not a way to escape or a way to get better at putting out the fires in the world, nor is it even a way to get to something fundamental and eternal within us. This experience is the eternal within us. We spend our entire lives and much of our mental energy escaping from this eternity. Our consciousness gives us the convention and logic of language, allowing human beings to interact with each other and the world within the pattern of cause and effect. These tools, while useful, ultimately point away from the eternal ground of our being. However, any sign that points in one direction can be turned to point in another. We touch this ground of our being when hear music without the spinning internal dialogue about what instruments are playing which notes. We touch this ground when we listen to someone speak without wondering what we will say next. We touch this ground when we, like the student of Zen, act spontaneously without ulterior motives. We touch this ground when, in silence, we transcend subject and object, when we transcend the idea of self and other. The friction between the universe and our grasping minds creates the fire in Rome. Living in the ground of our being robs that fire of its fuel.

For a much more thorough analysis of Lontano than is appropriate here, as well as commentary on Ligeti’s life and music, please read Music of the Imagination by Richard Steinitz.

(Quotes taken from Ligeti’s interview with Josef Hausler in the book Ligeti in Conversation: Eulenburg Books, London. Sir William Glock, editor.)

Bryan Hooten is a trombonist, composer and educator living in Richmond, VA. He plays with Ombak, Fight the Big Bull, No BS Brass, Verbatim, and various other groups. He teaches Music Theory and Small Jazz Ensembles at VCU and directs the Jazz Band at James River High School. He also serves on the faculty of the Governor’s School for the Humanities and Visual and Performing Arts. He can be seen every Wednesday at Cous Cous (900 W. Franklin) performing with either Ombak or Fight the Big Bull.