The Bob Marvin of the 2030s?

A novel version of “What I did on my summer vacation” — college kid with no woodworking experience builds a contrabass recorder.

John Adams is blogging

Yes, that John Adams.

And he’s even allowing comments.

Chanta Claus came to town!

Sr. Mary Electa (Madeline Columbro) is going to Rome and has things she can neither leave here nor take with, and since she got her doctorate here, we were gifted with (last week) a number of microfilms of early manuscripts and early music dissertations, and (today) books on and of chant. This is one of the 3 shelves in my office…a crappy picture taken with a crappy camera by a crappy photographer. The chant books go as far back as 1853. Most so far are only held by a half-dozen or so institutions (mostly Catholic), though I’ve found one unicum so far. 1 1/2 shelves are chant; the books are generally cool things that we already own. I’m hoping this will not only be of use to early music people, but to Catholics, once we get them catalogued and on the shelf.

Music, farming, economic planning

I was at the Ciaramella concert Sat. night, had my loud band withdrawal exacerbated and am inspired to play more, And I’ve been thinking about this piee of Beck’s.

There’s a problem in that, even within my discipline, I spread myself way too thin. I’m a composer, I play half a dozen early winds, I have a church singing job, I occasionally get inspired to work on fiddle tunes on my mandolin. I can’t prioritize, even though I “should”, because it’s all way too cool.

But what’s killing me is the farm…the 2  1/2 hr per day commute, and all the time planting and harvesting. It’s not that I don’t enjoy it, because I do. But in terms of income, it makes no sense. Even the crappy pay of music returns more.  Why am I out here, doing what I do, if it’s not the highest use for my time?

If this were the 1950s or earlier, when we had the blessings of at least less screwed government, the answer would be simple: I’m nuts. It’s a little more complex now. I’m out here as part of a rational plan. At some point Real Soon Now, the cities will become uninhabitable, and the economy unsustainable.  When that happens, I’ll be prepared…I’ll be out of the city, have land, and know a little what to do with it. I will be “less than I could have been”, perhaps; maybe Western Civilization will deprived of x number of masterpieces (or messterpieces). But I and my loved ones will exist.

That’s what “rational economic planning” looks like, in the absence of a rational economy.  And It’s not like I’m the first to experience it. Think of any number of German musicians during the 30 Years War (Schütz did better than most.). Or the guys in Europe 70 years ago who had to choose between America and the concentration camp. Nothing to be done but suck it up and get busy. And get the product out there…there won’t be a midnight knock, because no-knock raids are all the rage.

Can I vomit now?

Little black cherubs singing for health care reform on CNN.

How cool is this?

The British Library has put its sound archives online

It’s mostly folk and traditional music, mostly from the UK and Africa; the classical things and some folk are UK-only (thanks in large part to barbaric US copyright law.) But it’s great to hear real folk music sung by real folk. There’s lots of other weirdness (speeches, sound effects etc) too.

Last Mass at St. Procop

They’ve closed the old Czech parish… and Bishop Lennon, the hatchet man himself, was there to celebrate Mass. I don’t know what to think of that. They didn’t have a priest there. It was good of him to man up, put himself on the spot and take responsibility. But in another sense it was just rubbing salt in the wounds. And all the security was a little distasteful.

This is telling:

A choir, accompanied by organ, trumpets, guitars and drums, filled the majestic Byzantine Romanesque structure, rich in sacred art, stained-glass windows and glorious ceiling medallions. The old church, with paint peeling from its walls and ceiling, hadn’t seen such liveliness in decades.

With that lineup, you can bet they weren’t doing Palestrina. The incongruence between the building and the music is pretty stunning.

No. Hell no. Non serviam.

The NEA is being co-opted as a means of creating pro-Obama-program propaganda:

I was invited by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to take part in a conference call that invited a group of rising artist and art community luminaries “to help lay a new foundation for growth, focusing on core areas of the recovery agenda – health care, energy and environment, safety and security, education, community renewal.”

The call would include “a group of artists, producers, promoters, organizers, influencers, marketers, taste-makers, leaders or just plain cool people to join together and work together to promote a more civically engaged America and celebrate how the arts can be used for a positive change!”

The people running the conference call and rallying the group to get active on these issues were Yosi Sergant, the Director of Communications for the National Endowment for the Arts; Buffy Wicks, Deputy Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement; Nell Abernathy, Director of Outreach for United We Serve; Thomas Bates, Vice President of Civic Engagement for Rock the Vote; and Michael Skolnik, Political Director for Russell Simmons.

We were encouraged to bring the same sense of enthusiasm to these “focus areas” as we had brought to Obama’s presidential campaign, and we were encouraged to create art and art initiatives that brought awareness to these issues. Throughout the conversation, we were reminded of our ability as artists and art professionals to “shape the lives” of those around us. The now famous Obama “Hope” poster, created by artist Shepard Fairey and promoted by many of those on the phone call, and will.i.am’s “Yes We Can” song and music video were presented as shining examples of our group’s clear role in the election.

Obama has a strong arts agenda, we were told, and has been very supportive of both using and supporting the arts in creative ways to talk about the issues facing the country. We were “selected for a reason,” they told us. We had played a key role in the election and now Obama was putting out the call of service to help create change. We knew “how to make a stink,” and were encouraged to do so.

If a former Obamabot can see just what bad boogly this is for the arts community in general and the NEA in specific, what more can I say, except this:

If they want politicized art, I would be MORE THAN HAPPY to “help create change”. If art should “bring awareness to issues”, well hell, I can do that. I’m enough of an old folkie to remember what part music had in the 60s Communization of the culture. And I’ve read of the old Popular Front composers of the 30s, Uncle Aaron and his Socialist Realism. We can do that, just like we can do Alinsky.

And the first change, before anything else, should be to abolish the NEA.

Ace says:

As a commenter points out, artists are overwhelmingly leftists and do 99% of Thy Master’s Bidding anyway. And yet they apparently feel they must organize the effort and have the NEA — the country’s largest funder of art — slip out the word that all efforts in this area would be much appreciated.

Did you know that there are now 150 tracks in the iTunes Store with “Obama” in the title?

UPDATE 9/2: Apparently Yosi Sergant is a lying POS. And whazzup with that name anyway? Did his mom ask for baby-naming advice from Ayn Rand?

Lisa Rainsong and the bugs

Today the Plain Dealer online version has a wonderful piece on my dear friend Lisa Rainsong (one of Ohio’s better composers) and her new project studying insect music. There’s a nice little video where she explains it all, far better than I ever could.

Lisa’s also an avid birder, carbon-sucking Earth-destroyer that she is.

Billy disses the national anthem

Well, it does have a wide range, and it does get slaughtered on a regular basis. But the people who do the most harm are not the people who can’t sing. No, it’s the “ahtistes” who, after vocal stylings and noodlings that would be excessive in a torch song, go up to the tonic at “Free….EEEEE!” It’s not about you, assholes, it’s about the country. So just sing the thing.

This summer with Community Band, I gave them the lecture: “It has words! Play the words! You wouldn’t sing “Oh-ho say can you see…” I also sing along while conducting…because I can.

My favorite version of SSB is the version from the Dodworth Saxhorn Journal, recorded on some old Nonesuch LP. It’s a lot closer to Smith’s glee, with a lilt to the 3/4, and big cadenzas at “wave”. It’s pre-Civil War, when we took the country a little less seriously than we do now. #2 is probably Stravinsky (so much for “just sing the thing”), which was banned in Boston.