Dial "M" for Musicology

The Four Ways of Practice

Phil Ford

[This is written a couple of months after the post below -- I have to add some stuff just to clarify a couple of things. Back when I this blog's last post, Jonathan and I decided to discontinue this blog and I decided to stop paying for the multi-author option in Typepad, since  the number of blog authors was now somewhere around zero. So when my contract ran out the whole site reverted to the free, no-frills format. The good news is that we have a durable archive of roughly 4 years' work and I don't have to pay for it; the bad news is that the site now looks terrible and is hard to navigate. The old category list is gone, as is the month-by-month list of archived stuff. But you can hit "next" at the bottom of the page to navigate backwards, I guess, and you can click on the tags at the bottom of each entry.

Also, for some reason the description of a long-deleted class blog reappeared and attached itself to  Dial M. So for the record, folks, this blog is not, and never has been, the blog of my seminar "Sound, Media,  and Performance." (I only just figured out how to get that wording off.) You'll notice that the site now makes it look as if I, Phil Ford, were the sole author of this blog, but for those who might be happening on it for the first time now, I should make it clear that it was always a collaboration between Jonathan Bellman and myself. If you're confused about who wrote what, Jonathan's posts (as well as the posts by the various guest-bloggers who contributed things over the years) are "signed": there's a little Typepad handle at the bottom of each post. The posts I wrote have no such signature. OK, I'm done.]

Hello everyone -- 

(I write this with the hopeful assumption that there still is an "everyone" to address)

I was on vacation when Jonathan posted his final blog post, and I've been very slow to follow up. Typical. I haven't written anything here since, what, January 4? That's no way to treat poor old Dial M. God, there's something so sad about an abandoned blog, or any abandoned project, really. And there's no way to end a blog without abandoning it. It's not like a book; you can't write the last chapter. At some point, you're just going to stop writing, and whatever the last thing that passed through your bloggy head will be preserved at the top of the page forever (or until you stop paying to keep the site up), something you wrote in the last presidential administration about something now impossibly antique and irrelevant. Or maybe you wrote one of those "I haven't written anything here in a long time, but I'll get back to it soon, I promise" sorts of things, like a New Years resolution to lose 20 pounds and go to the gym three times a week, and your last blog post will preserve the sad shriveled husk of an aborted intention. Or perhaps you wanted to go out with a bang and wrote a Dear John letter to the medium of blogging: things were exciting when we started out together, but my needs are no longer being met, I'm feeling unfulfilled, I need to make some changes . . . 

I don't want to do any of that. Regrets, I've had a few, but then again, too few to mention. I started this blog back in 2006, which is like 20 years ago in blog years. Jonathan and I (and our various guest contributors) have written a lot of stuff in the meantime. I'm proud of it, happy I did it, and now it's time to end it. We're done.

I'm not necessarily done with blog-like activities. I continue to believe that academic communication will continue to be shaped by the commons-based peer production model that the blogosphere models. Whether or not it will be a "blogosphere" I couldn't possibly guess. Whatever it is, I'll probably show up there, and so will you. In the meantime, I have writing projects lined up for, like, actual books, and they need attending to. That's what's been taking up most of my writing headspace since the new year, and that's not likely to change for a long time. 

I would like to thank everyone who wrote in the comments section or sent an email (even though I've been shockingly bad at remembering to check the Dial M gmail account and have probably missed a few -- sorry if that was you*). Thanks to all the people who come up to me at AMS meetings and say hello because they read something I wrote on Dial M (it makes my day). Thanks to all the other musicolobloggers and culture-bloggers and anyone who ever gave us link love. Thanks above all to everyone who read us. I have no delusions about Dial M being very important in the grand scheme of things, but it was important to me, mostly because we had a readership that made it worth doing. 

I'm writing this at home, and my daughter just came home from her last day at "Writing and Illustrating Your Own Books" camp. She handed me a book of poems she made. Here is one poem, inspired by her violin practice:

The Four Ways of Practice:

1. Always believe in yourself.

2. Do whatever you are doing with effort.

3. try!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11

4. Be truthful.

Young musicologists, heed this teaching! I have nothing to add to it.

*My real email is fordp at indiana dot edu. Keep in touch!

The moving soundscape meditation

Phil Ford

Lyle Sanford just added a wonderful quote from Daniel Goleman's Vital Lies, Simple Truths to my last post:

The range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice. And because we fail to notice that we fail to notice there is little we can do to change until we notice how failing to notice shapes our thoughts and deeds.

It's wonderful because it gets at the heart of what it is we want from music, art, learning, love, religion, philosophy, sports -- pretty much everything worthwhile we do -- which is personal transformation. And it suggests why that transformation ("change") is so difficult. 

Actually, calling it "personal" is a bit wrong, because the most powerful experiences of art, love, etc., tend to be unitive: they tend towards the subject's total immersion and identification with the object (self with music, self with the beloved, self with the divine), such that the distinction between subject and object disappears. (I've written about one particular kind of unitive experience before.) But getting to that experience, to say nothing about integrating it into one's normal life (so it's not just like a theme park ride or something, a momentary trippy diversion, but something that changes the way you hear music, relate to your spouse, etc.), demands something very hard: we have to change the way we sense and think about the world around us. We have to break old cognitive habits, which (as Goleman notes) is especially hard because we don't even know they're habits. 

So how do we break our cognitive habits? How do we notice what we fail to notice? I've gotten interested in the idea of doing . . . well, I don't quite know what to call them. "Existential exercises," maybe, or "experiential exercises" -- EE for short. (Works either way.) Meditation is one kind of EE: it's a practice where you pay attention to how your body and mind are tuned, how the total organism is working in its environment, what you're thinking about, how you feel. Yoga is a similar sort of thing -- it looks like what we usually mean by exercise (you move your body and get stronger), but it's also a way of paying attention to the body's functioning more generally. (Your mind is a part of your body, too.) And there are other things -- playing the piano, doing judo, etc. -- that can function in similar ways. Sooner or later these practices will all converge on the same discipline: an awareness of how we pay attention, or don't, what we pay attention to, and how well we sustain our concentration. 

At a certain point when I was getting really serious about piano playing I realized that I was getting stuck, not because I couldn't physically move my fingers in certain ways, but because I didn't know how to focus my mind the right way to train my hands to make those movements. I learned one of my great enduring truths of piano playing: learning to play means learning to practice. You have to figure out what you're paying attention to, how you pay attention to it, how your consciousness is organized when you're concentrating (are you self-conscious? what does that feel like? what does it feel like to let go of self-consciousness?), how long you can concentrate, what it feels like to lose focus, and so on. And this is something that is actually very good for one's general happiness and health. When you get good at this meta kind of self-monitoring in your chosen practice, you get better at it all around. You notice things. The world becomes a more beautiful and mysterious place. 

But not everyone plays the piano, so what are they supposed to do? I remember going to a Michael Colgrass workshop about 20 years ago where he did all these exercises in . . . I don't know exactly what the name for it is, but his exercises pertained to that habitual and largely hidden meta level where we structure the various things we do every day. These are what I'm calling EE. (I don't remember what Colgrass called them.) Anyone can do them. 

Here's an example of what I'm talking about, which I found at an esotericist site I stumbled on:

Exercise: 

1. List all of those habits that you maintain that have no benefit beyond the experience itself; 2. Stop doing them for a period of two weeks (you can always start again after this period of time, so you won’t be losing those things you really can’t live without forever); 3. At the end of the two weeks, compare the old habits from step 1 with the new habits that have formed over the last two weeks. 4. Now choose who you are.

Interesting. Here's a more musical EE, which takes the form of a composition that uses an "event score" (i.e., a set of verbal instructions for a performed act). My cultural studies class just did a week on John Cage and the post-Cagean avant garde and read Liz Kotz's badass article on George Brecht's event scores, which I recommend for anyone wanting to go deeper into this phenomenon. Anyway, here's the score of Pauline Oliveros's "Tuning Meditation," which I often use in classes when I want to illustrate the concerns of the American post-1950s avant garde. (I heartily recommend doing this, by the way.) 

Begin by taking a deep breath and letting it all the way out with air sound. Listen with your mind’s ear for a tone. 

On the next breath using any vowel sound, sing the tone that you have silently perceived on one comfortable breath. 

Listen to the whole field of sound the group is making. 
Select a voice distant from you and tune as exactly as possible to the tone you are hearing from that voice. 

Listen again to the whole field of sound the group is making.
Contribute by singing a new tone that no one else is singing. 

Continue by listening then singing a tone of your own or tuning to the tone of another voice alternately.

Commentary: 

Always keep the same tone for any single breath. Change to a new tone on another breath. Listen for distant partners for tuning.
Sound your new tone so that it may be heard distantly. 

Communicate with as many difference voices as possible. 

Sing warmly!

 

OK, so I made an event score of my own, which I tried out yesterday as I was walking across campus after getting my flu shot. Call it the "moving soundscape meditation." 

 

Go for a walk by yourself. As you walk, pay attention to every sound that comes to your ears. 

Listen to how each sound in your environment arises and passes away. Pay special attention to the beginnings of sounds.

Listen to the sounds of your own body -- your breathing, your heartbeat, your footsteps, and so on. 

Treat all sounds as equally important.

Commentary:

You will find it surprisingly difficult to notice when sounds begin. Often you will be following how one sound dies away and won't notice another sound beginning to enter your field of hearing. Or you might get distracted by something you see, or start thinking about something else. When you notice this happening, redirect your attention back to the sounds in your immediate environment. Pay attention to how often you need to refocus your attention. 

Pay enough attention to your surroundings that you remain physically safe. You should walk with your eyes open, though if visual stimuli are too distracting you may focus your gaze on the ground in front of you.

The composition is over when you reach your destination. Take a bow.

Hooks, Ultimate

Jonathan Bellman

A head's-up:  Steve Smith, a Philosophy/Religious Studies guy at Millsaps College, has a blog/chronicle/study of hooks, specifically hooks in rock songs.  Smith's project is off to a fine start, and while I admit that our definitions of "hook" differ, it still makes for enjoyable and thought-provoking reading.  Just to explain the difference: my idea of a hook has always been an instrumental riff that grabs you by the collar (or something else) and doesn't let go—ever.  Obvious examples would be the the opening electric piano lick from "Summer in the City" (Lovin' Spoonful), the closing piano lick from Paul McCartney's "Venus and Mars," the signature guitar licksfrom the Beatles' "Day Tripper" (yes, Clapton did it first in the Bluesbreakers' version of Ray Charles's "What'd I Say," but still), Sugarloaf's "Don't Call Us, We'll Call You," the Byrds' version of "Mr. Tambourine Man," the Move's "Do Ya" (much superior to ELO's), etc.  You know what I mean, right?  It's a hook!

According to Prof. Smith, the definition is somewhat broader, including "Trying," "Odd Meter," or even "The Greatest 'F--- You.'"  So, on that basis, I'll suggest one.  The category is the greatest dismissive laugh, the most devastating (in laugh form) negation of a girl, all her ancestors, her entire gender…by a wronged singer.  My nomination: the second (not the first, which is a mere "ah"), laugh in Dion and the Belmonts' "Lovers Who Wander."  The line is "Look at me now (hah!); you'd never know it"  and the second time it's pretty much fatal.

Agree?  Disagree?  Let Steve know.

Happy 200000

Phil Ford

Hey, I just noticed, our stats just rolled over: we got our 200,000th page view today. Cheers!

Source.

Postmodern to the Point of Pain

Jonathan Bellman

The Leningrad Cowboys and the Red Army Chorus (and musicians, obviously) doing "Sweet Home Alabama."  Not sure they completely understand such lyrics as "I hope Neil Young will remember/Southern Man doesn't need him around, anyhow" and "Now Watergate does not bother me/Does your conscience bother you?".

In all its glory.

Seems appropriate today, somehow.

Note the footwear

Phil Ford

What the hell, everybody's doing it. This is me, yo:

No joke, Burger King's "Simpsonizer" is probably the best movie promotional tool in history.

Off

Phil Ford

I'm taking off for a week -- going to Bloomington and looking at houses. Be good while I'm gone.

News

Phil Ford

A couple of Dial M news items: 1. Achewood has its own newly-invented slang term for "awesome": James Bond in a towel. Not as good as cop show, I respectfully submit, but very fine all the same. Chris Onstad is the master of invented parallel-world slang. 2. Apparently, Dial M has been nominated for a Koufax award. This is totally cop show, insofar as I understand what it is. I think Dial M readers will have an opportunity to vote for us in a little bit, so gear up, readers. Now that I know there is such a thing as the Koufax awards, I am filled with new, strange desires. Thanks to whoever it was who nominated us.

largely unrelated matters

Phil Ford

Some miscellaneous things: 1. Someone else is blogging the Ring! Go look at Caviar for the General> 2. We're getting some comment spam. Makes me mad. We're probably going to make everyone who wants to post a comment use the Typekey authentication service soon. This shouldn't be a big deal. 3. Totally unrelated to music, but I thought it was funny. My Mom lives way out in the country, and there's a local character who is basically a second-hand horse dealer. He's also a notable drunk, and is lucky enough to own a horse that he rides into town, and, when he's gotten plastered, will ride him home without guidance. (Let's see your GPS do that.) Anyway, there's not a lot of police presence in this part of Ontario, but one day a passing cop saw the horse carrying its obviously drunk master home and pulled them over. And cited the guy for drinking and horseriding. Which is illegal, I guess.

Rings

Phil Ford

Want to find out which Lord of the Rings character you are? Take this little test. (Tip o' the hat to Perfect Diapason.)

What LoTR Character Are You?

It is as I thought. Speaking of rings . . . Next week I'm heading to Toronto for a week to see the Ring -- the Canadian Opera Company's much-ballyhooed production of Wagner's Ring tetralogy, not the LotR musical, as someone asked me, doubtless not quite believing that a guy who writes about Les Baxter would be going to see that other, longer Ring . . . One friend of mine, hearing that I was making The Pilgrimage (what is it about Wagner and Tolkien that make you want to Capitalize Everything?) said, oh, so you're one of those people. To which I reply, I'm going to see the Ring for the same reason that Sir Edmund Hillary climbed Everest: my Mom got me tickets. She used to work for the COC and is an inveterate opera freak, and when I finished my Ph.D. she bought me a ticket as a graduation present. That was three years ago: at last, it's showtime. Now, I'm really not one of those people -- you know, following Ring productions around the world like Deadheads but with better hygiene and different drugs. Like a lot of people I have a complicated, conflicted relationship to Wagner. Parsifal blows my mind, but Siegfried, for example, is just a little too full of mannheit and bruderschaft for comfort. (I always root for the Nibelungen. Screw the gods!) But going to hear the Ring in all its majesty is one of those all-time things-to-do-before-you-die. I'm psyched. So I'll see if I can use my Mom's ancient Mac to post live (or almost-live) blog updates of the production. Fair warning: I make no claims for my ability to say anything intelligent about Wagner. I'm an enthusiast, not a specialist. Wagner scholars will just have to grit their teeth and deal with the fact that, at the end of the day, I'm a guy who writes about Les Baxter.