Author Archives: Caroluna

George Walker — Pulitzer prize winning composer

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George Walker, first African American composer to win Pulitzer Prize, dies at 96

Dr. Walker, who died Aug. 23 at 96, at a hospital in Montclair, N.J., found limited success as a concert pianist, despite early critical acclaim and support from leading pianists such as Rudolf Serkin, his instructor at Curtis. He said he faced racial discrimination — “a pressure-resistant stone wall” — from managers, talent agencies and orchestras who passed over him for white performers. At the same time, he suffered agonizing stomach pain, ulcer attacks that left him hospitalized for as long as a month. Yet Dr. Walker went on to establish himself as a revered composer, a pathbreaking music teacher and a powerful critic of racial discrimination in classical music. In 1996, he became the first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize for music, for his song cycle “Lilacs,” set to stanzas from Walt Whitman’s poem “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d.”

Note — on looking this up — it’s a long poem in free verse, written in 1865. It is an elegy for Lincoln, though he is not mentioned by name in the poem.

One of his best-known works was also his earliest: “Lyric for Strings,”which was written in 1946 as the second movement of his first string quartet. The piece was inspired by the death of his grandmother, a former slave.

With mixed success, he sought to be viewed simply as a pianist-composer, without a racial label attached. When he did begin alluding to jazz standards and spirituals in his work — after attending a 1968 music symposium in Atlanta, where he said he met another black orchestral composer for the first time — he buried the references in atonal pieces that utilized complex time signatures and nontraditional chord progressions.

“He took these simple, elemental melodies and abstracted them so that only someone who knows what to listen for can perceive they’re buried in the fabric of the music,” said his son Gregory Walker, a violinist and former concertmaster of the Boulder Philharmonic Orchestra in Colorado. “You could think of that as a metaphor for his life. There he is working in this white, classical European idiom and mastering it. But he has a grandmother who was a slave, and is part of [African American] culture.”

Photo from Washington Post — taken in 1996

Sunday, Week 1

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I’m still scrubbing bird-poop stains off my keyboards. There’s 2 knobs that have been missing for several years — Quark pulled them off and flew away with them. Maybe someday I’ll find them…

I dusted off a book I’ve had in my library, Keyboard Musician for the Adult Beginner. It’s a little confusing. What are the numbers over certain notes? Do they want me to play RH or LH depending on if stems are up or down? I guess these questions will be answered in Keyboard Lab!

My husband was out of the house for about 1.5 hrs, so I used the alone time to do some improvising. I set up my digi recorder and used the Korg Karma (play a chord and it just burbles away). I used my simple system flutes in G, D, and C. My tone is best on the G; I can’t hit the lowest notes on the C yet. Then I  tried the Boehm flute. I don’t know the fingering so I was just messing around, and came up with something based on a whole-tone scale. Also did some singing, clapping and stomping.

Something I really like about the bamboo flutes is, say you start an improvisation on “re” or “mi” (and set up the Karma to use that note as a drone), right away you’re off in modal territory (Dorian, Phrygian).

Now I have the craving to buy a new bamboo flute in the hideous key of C# / Db. Patrick Olwell isn’t making bamboo flutes anymore (because he is so far behind on his blackwood ones), but supposedly there is someone now who is following in his footsteps. I think he has a booth at the Renn Fest. I HATE the key of C# — getting a flute in that key might help me to get over my resistance. Playing the flute in its home key would be easy enough, it’s improvising along on the keyboard that would be horrible.

I also played around with my Dixon pennywhistle and my 2 ocarinas. All of those would be good for making bird calls. I think my “Home Planet” piece could start off with slightly off-key bird calls and wind rushing through the grass. Then this could solidify into a theme. Maybe this is being too literal, but the next thing that happened in the game was Neochadwickia (and the Lunatoucans) were destroyed; then I wandered around a while and eventually found a new home planet. No birds on that one, but it did have Gervays. So could overlay the Gervay theme on the Lunatoucan theme (or develop the one into the other)?

Thinking out loud. So, I guess LOT300W will have a storyline.

Intro

(Travel — first voyage)
Empty Planet (peaceful, simple)
Ice Planet (more complex, sparkly)
Home Planet 1 (birds, folk tune-like)

(Travel — second voyage)
Toxic Planet (discordant, weird, funny)
Desert Planet (austere, awe-inspiring)
Gervays (comical, charming)
Home Planet + Death

(Travel — third voyage)
Broken Planet (unpleasant, spare)
Paradise Planet (complete opposite)
Ocean Planet (simple, waves)
Home Planet 2
includes oceans, home, Paradise, gervays

Home Planet 2 + Death
Might be able to indicate in some way — death all the things?*
Gervay death, ocean death, toxic death, broken death, empty death
fragments, hints of all the previous themes
as if you are remembering your travels
intro / extro

 

*”death all the things”

 

What’s that sound?

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I was in the house and noticed a new, strange sound coming from the back yard. It sounded like a cicada, but more metallic. I picked up my digital recorder and went to check it out. It was our neighbor, Josh, in his shed working with a  rotary blade sharpener. It reminded me of a circular saw, but was scraping at a lawnmower blade rather than cutting through wood. I got Josh’s attention and asked him if I could record the sound for a music project. He said “Certainly!!” with such enthusiasm and good humor that I was taken aback.

 

It is a distinctive sound that is mildly caustic and unpleasant. Could definitely use it for the Broken World. I want to have a collection of more-or-less atonal sounds for that one, almost like a flower arrangement of them — some more spare and some more thick. This particular sound is “thick”, with a lot of harmonics, and a repeating rhythmic structure. It did have a recognizable pitch buried in the noise.

To extend the metaphor — not so much a “flower arrangement” as one of those dried arrangements that my mother-in-law used to make, with the bulky bulgy milkweed pods, spiky teazel, cylindrical cattails, and the airy skeletal remains of flowers such as baby’s breath, chamomile and asters. Dry, crunchy, stiff, unbending, fragile, and relatively monochromatic.

 

LOT300W

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I needed a shorthand title, like LOTR or ST:TNG or ASOIAF.

Provisional title “Last of the 300 Worlds”

I had taken a long break from No Man’s Sky but when I found out that the game world was wrapping up in July 24th, I jumped back in for the last 2 weeks. “I’m up to 200 and some, why not aim for an even 300.” During this time I recorded about 20 hrs of footage. When I make the final videos I think it would be fine to insert some footage from the previous exploration (ex. if I want to do an episode on ALL the kinds of Gervays), but for the most part I want to rely on, well, the last of the 300 worlds.

It really was a nice survey of planets — I did find several of each type. Also, it was amazing that I FINALLY found a planet that had three of my favorite things on it — lush grasses and plants, wide oceans, and Gervays. Still hard to believe I found one like that; I doubt I will ever find another!

Si bheag si mhor

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Today I was thinking that I could ask fellow students at HCC to participate in the “Last of the 300 Worlds” project (LOT300W). For certain planets I could ask them for guided improvisation. (If the other students help me come up with themes, how do I give them proper credit? Ask Prof. )

I was thinking about which planets I would want guided improvisation, and which ones would I want to be mine, all mine. There are three — the intro / outro (because this is a story that I am telling, a story from my point of view), the Gervays (because they are my buddies, my favorites) and my Home Planet. Note that I have a Home, it is destroyed unexpectedly, and I find a Second Home which is in some ways more beautiful. But this time I know that the destruction is coming, and then both that home and the rest of the universe are lost.

I talked somewhere else about for me (and unlike Lisbeth Scott), music is a form of building rather than a form of self-revelation. But in the case of the Home Planet theme, I will be expressing something personal.

So I was worrying. How in the world will I be able to come up with a theme that is so beautiful and yet so heartrending? I could just picture being at the end of the school year with ONE more theme to do and it is THAT one, and I am stuck. Painted myself into a corner! Argh!!

Then the thought came “Si Bheag Si Mhor”. Pronounced “she beg she more”, this is an Irish tune, probably the first one I learned — on my first bamboo flute. If I’m remembering right,  I was working my way through “100 Best Tunes for the Pennywhistle” — and I came to that one. I heard the first phrase and suddenly it was as if I had known the tune from another life. I didn’t recognize it, more like it fit into my heart like a key into a lock.

Maybe this would be good for my Home Planet theme. Am I allowed to use it? I suppose the copyright has elapsed? When Holst created his Planet suite, the Jupiter theme is like a folk-song. Was it his own tune or did he adapt it?

I also thought that I could use phrases from literal bird calls. I have a wonderful recording that I made of a mockingbird singing late at night. Unfortunately the recording has some traffic noise (hard to avoid here, even at 2 am), but if I was just borrowing from the mockingbird, that wouldn’t matter.

Borrowing? Stealing?

Dr. Greenberg says “If you’re going to steal, steal from the best”

Anyway — now I have some raw material for the most personal part of LOT300W. I don’t have to worry about racking my brains at 2 am during finals week.

Reducing anxiety by being “meta”

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This summer I worked on a diet and fitness program based on Intermittent Fasting. It was a huge change from my regular habits. Usually I eat as a transitional activity. Come home from a stressful doctor appointment? Grab a snack. Finish the dishes and the next thing to do is clean the aviary? Get something to eat to “fortify” myself. Time to edit the newsletter? Definitely gotta eat something first. The responsibility I’m anxious about can’t nag at me if I’m eating something.

The way I got around this habit was to WRITE ABOUT how I was feeling during those times. I called it my “Journal of Whining” and I filled 5 spiral bound notebooks this summer.

Yesterday I drove to HCC by myself for the first time. I knew I was going to be terrified. Previously I had made the trip with my son riding shotgun, and talking to him took my mind off the fear. Yesterday I had the brilliant idea to bring my digital recorder along with me, and spend the whole trip narrating how I felt at any given time. “I’m scared. I’m sooooo scared. I have to pee. Can I just turn around and go home? Oh sh-t I nearly missed that stop sign”.

It worked quite well — my own narration was so over-the-top that I cracked myself up. And “look out for the speed bump” is useful self-talk.

This led to another idea. My plan is to have a chunk of composing work done every two weeks. (That’s why this blog now has 9 pages — one for each 2-week period this semester.) My brilliant idea was to make a short video every 2 weeks talking about what I had accomplished during that period of time. Narrate my own creative process! I got very excited about this and wrote a script for episode 1, and sketched out a script for episode 2.

For  some reason, being meta about this — not just composing, but talking about the process of composing — was helpful to my attitude. The thought of spending 2 weeks beating my head against the wall is terrifying. Talking about the process of beating my head against the wall could be hilarious.

I’m also getting excited about the idea of narrating something. I will be starting voice lessons next week. It would be cool to work on my speaking voice as well as my singing voice.

I wish I could sound like this, but there’s only one Emily Reese!

A Color wheel of themes

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The way my brain works, it helps to have what I’m working on sitting out where I can see it. Otherwise I get distracted and forget! I had the idea that I could have some kind of visual reminder of my composing project hanging on the wall, and I could stick post-it notes on it.

I arranged those 12 images (representing the 12 themes) around a color wheel. This made me realize that just as a color wheel has a range of color values (yellow is the “lightest” and blue violet is the “darkest”), a suite of compositions would have a lowest point and a highest point. I don’t think that the way I have the music themes arranged around the color wheel necessarily corresponds to the color values. In other words, I don’t think that the Empty Planet theme has to be the “darkest” and the Desert Planet theme has to be the “lightest”. But I should consider “how light does it get, how dark does it get” and arrange everything between those two extremes.

I have often thought about this while watching episodes of Doctor Who. The actor Peter Capaldi has such a range of emotions and I’m sure they sat down at the beginning of the season to sketch out “this scene is when you’re going to be in the most pain. This scene is when you experience the most joy. This is when you’re the most flat, bored, withdrawn, lethargic”.

One of my professors at HCC yesterday talked about “character development” in program music — does the music capture a character’s personality? Some composers do this especially well. She mentioned Ennio Morricone — a name I had not heard before. Though I did recognize this!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1PfrmCGFnk

 

 

Current snapshot of goals

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While talking to Mentor # 1 yesterday I had an opportunity to describe the composition project I would like to work on this year.

  • A suite of compositions
  • Inspired by the moods / virtual environments of a video game
  • The game is called “No Man’s Sky” and is a planet exploration game
  • In the original version of the game, the player is a solitary space traveler
  • Recently the game was updated to include multiple players
  • …which meant that the previous universe was re-written (destroyed)
  • I now have a limited amount of footage to draw from
  • This puts helpful limits on the project.
  • Create 12 themes expressing different kinds of planets and situations
  • ex. dangerous planet, beautiful planet, travel theme, farewell theme
  • Use these themes (motifs) as a basis for compositions
  • Compositions to include examples of things I’m learning about
  • such as monophony, polyphony, chamber group, orchestra
  • Write the manuscript notation of each composition (in Finale)
  • Record  and mix each composition using electronic instruments
  • Also record in “stem” form (keeping individual tracks separate)
  • This is a technique for video game soundtracks and film scores
  • NEXT year, record live instruments and voices?

Work in Progress

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Here’s the other half of the Green Room

Cables, Tascam Audio Interface, small microphone, big microphone, flash cards of the bass clef and chord inversions, 2 computers (old and new), Korg Karma (on the new stand!). Also Bonnie the dog, and a trash can holding a colony of mealworm beetles. The art hanging on the wall is a poster of Earthsea, given to me by another musician friend. I met him during my Irish flute days at Chiff and Fipple.

 

 

My mentors are with me

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One side of the Green Room is looking good!

Note that the “still life with bifocals” on the right hand side includes a little angel statue — a gift from my choir director in 2008 — and a tiny picture that says “Jesus Loves Me”. The latter is a gift from a friend who was a big influence on me in high school (and onward). She introduced me to the works of Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, and encouraged me to join the choir! The placard has an inscription on the back with the date 1983.

It’s wonderful to be reminded of the ongoing love and encouragement from my musical mentors. I had a two-hour talk with my high school friend yesterday. At the end of the conversation she said a prayer for me, a blessing on this upcoming year. And my other mentor, my choir director, will be back in my weekly routine soon; choir rehearsal resumes next week!