New Music: There’s an App for That!

Posted on April 13, 2016 by maestrobeats

The average American spends nearly five hours a day on their smartphone. That’s about a third of their waking life.

What could we possibly be doing for all that time? Well, usually we’re just wasting it—we’re scrolling through our Facebook feed to pass the time on a long bus ride, Snapchatting our friends from across the room during a TV commercial break, Instagramming our afternoon coffee, or checking for new matches on Tinder.

So much time wasted swiping left, right, upside down, right-side up—which is why I figure if we’re going to spend hours on our phone each day, we should at least make it worth our while. Why not spend that time improving our rhythm, enhancing our musical knowledge, exploring new music, or listening to some of the greatest artists and thinkers of our time?

Next time you find yourself stuck on a long bus ride, bored during a commercial break, or sitting alone in a crowded café sipping your coffee, turn off your social media and engage with these new music apps:

Second Inversion App

Okay, so this one’s an obvious pick—but here’s why: our app gives you on-the-go access to our carefully-curated 24/7 live stream, expansive video archive, on-demand concert recordings, new music event calendar, Joshua Roman blog posts, album reviews, and much more. You can also create a “Favorites List” of pieces you hear on the stream, or even set a custom alarm clock so that you can start each day with the latest in contemporary classical!

And rest assured, there are no commercials, no top 40, no corny talk radio—just 24/7 new and unusual music from all corners of the classical genre. Oh, and did I mention it’s FREE?

John Cage Apps

The 20th century composer and iconoclast John Cage is most famous for two main contributions to the classical canon: 1) his “silent” composition, titled 4’33”, and 2) his prepared piano pieces. The John Cage Trust has created apps out of both.

Cage’s three-movement 4’33″ is perhaps his most famous composition, teaching audiences that there is really no such thing as “silence,” but rather, the sound of the world around us is music in and of itself. In the app, you can capture your own three-movement performance of the ambient sounds in your environment, then upload and share that performance with the world. You can also listen to others’ performances, and explore a worldwide map of ever-growing performance locations. But here’s the coolest (read: geekiest) part: the app features a recording of the ambient sounds at play in Cage’s last New York apartment, which he found a source of constant surprise, inspiration, and delight.

Cage threw a wrench in the Western classical tradition (literally) when he invented the prepared piano in 1940. By placing everyday objects such as screws, bolts, and pieces of rubber between the strings of a grand piano, he created an entire percussion orchestra within a single instrument. Now, you can create your own entire percussion orchestra—within a single smartphone. Choose from dozens of sampled sounds of a piano prepared with the actual materials used by John Cage in the preparations for his Sonatas and Interludes, then record your performance and share it with the world!

bitKlavier Prepared Digital Piano App

Composer and electronic musician Dan Trueman gave the original 20^th century prepared piano a 21st century facelift last year when he created the prepared digital piano. Instead of bolts and screws stuck between the piano strings, virtual machines adorn the virtual strings—transforming the piano into an instrument that pushes back, sometimes like a metronome, other times like a reverse delay. The virtual strings also tighten and loosen on the fly, tuning in response to what is played. And in true 21^st century fashion, you can download the prepared digital piano as an app, plug it into your MIDI keyboard, and create your own compositions.

Third Coast Percussion Apps

Percussionists are on their game when it comes to new music apps. Third Coast Percussion actually has three: John Cage Quartet, the Music of Steve Reich, and Resounding Earth.

The John Cage app is based on his 1935 Quartet, which is scored for “any four instruments or sounds.” With this app, you can choose from a variety of pre-recorded sounds or record your own sounds to create a custom version of the piece!

The Steve Reich app allows you to create your own music using compositional techniques made famous by this minimalist composer, including phasing, additive processes, and canons. You can even record and sample your own sounds to make it truly your own!

Resounding Earth is the title of a 2012 composition written by composer Augusta Read Thomas for Third Coast Percussion. In the piece, the group performs on over 125 bells from all over the world. This app allows you to explore the incredible sounds and history of many of the bells featured in the composition, enriching your own knowledge of percussion practices around the world!

Unsilent Night App

Phil Kline’s Unsilent Night is an electronic composition written specifically for outdoor performance in December—but you and your friends can perform it anytime of year (as long as you have smartphones). Participants each download one of four tracks of music which, when played together, comprise the ethereal Unsilent Night.

Gather up as many friends as you can around a pile of boomboxes, speakers, or any other type of portable amplifiers, and instruct everyone to hit “play” at the same time. Then walk through the city streets creating an ambient, aleatoric sound sculpture filled with shimmering bells and time-stretched hymnal melodies.

Steve Reich Clapping Music App

In 1972, minimalist composer Steve Reich composed a piece using very minimal musical means: just two people, clapping. Sounds simple, but it’s actually pretty difficult: two people clap the same short rhythmic pattern, with one repeatedly shifting their pattern by a beat until the two patterns align again. This app allows you to test your own rhythm by tapping in time with Reich’s constantly shifting pattern, gradually progressing through all of the variations.

Choose from “easy,” “medium,” “hard,” or “practice” modes to up your rhythm game—if you achieve a high score, you can enter into a competition for the chance to perform the work live. And, you can also take part in a research project which investigates how people learn rhythm.

PhonoPaper App

Okay, so this one is about 30 percent Russian spy cryptology but 100 percent awesome nonetheless. The idea was inspired by old Soviet technology that uses visual codes for sound synthesis. Here’s how it works: PhonoPaper is essentially a graphical representation of sound (this can be music, a human voice, etc.); in other words, it is the two-dimensional audio barcode of the sound.

This app allows you to 1) generate your own PhonoPaper by converting a recorded sound into image, and 2) use your phone camera as a real-time PhonoPaper-code reader, to convert the image back into sound. How cool is that? You can even use the code reader to convert graphical representations of musical scores back into music—check out their site for some examples using pieces by Bach, Mozart, Lully, and more!

So whether you’re secret coding your latest symphony, clapping through a Steve Reich simulator, or just kicking back and listening to the Second Inversion stream, there’s so much music to be heard! Why waste time on social media when you have all these incredible new music apps at your fingertips?

ALBUM REVIEW: Traffic Quintet Plays Alexandre Desplat

Posted on April 4, 2016 by maestrobeats

by Maggie Molloy
Most music and film fans are familiar with the music of Alexandre Desplat. After all, eight Oscar nominations (including one win), two BAFTA awards, a Golden Globe, and two Grammys tend to put you on the map.

But even if you’ve never heard of Alexandre Desplat, you’ve almost certainly heard his music. Do movies like The Queen, The Golden Compass, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button ring a bell? How about The Danish Girl, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Godzilla, and The Grand Budapest Hotel? Desplat composed the music for all of them, and for many more.

But you don’t have to be a movie buff to appreciate the music of Desplat—in fact, you don’t even have to watch the movies.

The Traffic Quintet recently released an album titled “Traffic Quintet Plays Alexandre Desplat,” which reimagines 13 of Desplat’s famous film scores for piano quintet, with occasional interventions from the composer himself on flute, glockenspiel, and celesta.

Led by director and violinist Dominique Lemonnier (better known as Solrey), the Traffic Quintet is committed to revisiting iconic soundtracks which have entered into the musical canon. The ensemble, which features violinists Solrey and Constantin Bobesco, violist Estelle Villotte, cellist Raphaël Perraud, and bassist Philippe Noharet, made their debut in cinema in 1997 when they performed Desplat’s music for Jacques Audiard’s film Un héros très discret. After their first encounter with the silver screen, they kept their film-inspired name, a tribute to filmmaker Jacques Tati, and began to explore the world of film music. For this latest project, the quintet is joined by the pianist Alain Planes.

After working on Un héros très discret,
Solrey became Desplat’s favorite soloist, concertmaster, artistic director, and eventually, his wife.

“Solrey’s influence on my music is crucial,” Desplat said. “When I heard her sound for the first time, the rich palette of her bow technique, the energy or tenderness she could convey with her instrument, I was under her charm, I was hooked: I had to inject this special and modern conception of violin playing into my compositions.”

Solrey supervised all the transcriptions on “Traffic Quintet Plays Alexandre Desplat,” and was also the one who persuaded Desplat to perform on the album. But with such a vast library of musical scores to choose from, how could they possibly pick which to perform?

“Closely,” Desplat said, “Solrey and I would spend hours listening to my collection of soundtracks to decide which piece had the potential required: a strong musicality and an original orchestration, which offered many transcription options, a technical challenge for the five musicians.”

Solrey also came up with the musical program for the album. Given the ensemble’s strong ties to cinema, the Traffic Quintet’s performances feature original video projections which tie into the colors and themes of the music in order to create an immersive experience for the audience. For this album, Solrey uses Desplat’s native city Paris as the storyline, musically portraying a leisurely stroll along the banks of the River Seine, capturing the changing light and the mysterious secrets of the river.

“Alexandre’s music invites you on a walk, wraps you up and lulls you gently into contemplation,” Solrey said. “The beauty of the banks and the ever-flowing streams of the Seine become a source of inspiration. I have been steeped in his music for so many years that when I came to go through the many scores I had recorded as a solo violinist, creating a sequence that would trace Alexandre’s musical evolution came quite naturally to me.”

The stroll begins with a twinkling piano theme from The King’s Speech. Soft strings accent the sweetly circling piano melody in this charming rendition of the movie’s warm, minimalist soundtrack.

Then, as if walking past the open window of a riverside apartment, the listener is suddenly transported into a daydream. A gorgeous, haunting flute and violin theme takes the listener into the mid-17th century world of Girl with a Pearl Earring. The two instruments intertwine over a bed of strings, balancing passionate lyricism with restraint, evoking musical images of the the young maid and her painter.

Yearning strings then travel through tales of love, death, and heartbreak in the music from Love Etc. and Le plus bel âge. The Traffic Quintet amps up the drama for the syncopated melodies and the textured pizzicato and col legno harmonies of Un héro très discret, a movie about a French man who sets out to Paris to find adventure and make himself a hero.

But like any slow stroll along the water, the listener soon encounters the shadows and hidden secrets of the flowing river. Aggressive, bold bowings and relentless rhythmic drive build suspense in the music of the political thriller, The Ghost Writer, before the listener returns to the calm, contemplative piano melodies of the existential, experimental drama film The Tree of Life.

Cello and double bass ground the foreboding music of Un prophète, a film about an imprisoned Algerian criminal who rises in the inmate hierarchy. Subtle glockenspiel flourishes and persistent col legno bowings create texture beneath the dramatic violin melodies. Tragedy, mystery, and discovery shine through in the pensive melodies and arresting climaxes of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, with introspective melodies shifting through flute, violin, piano, and cello.

The walk along the river eventually takes the listener through tales of forbidden love, transitioning through the ominous and slow-moving crescendos of the espionage erotic thriller Lust, Caution followed by the soaring, palpably passionate (and sometimes mischievous) violin and cello melodies of Chéri.

Layered strings shift slowly through colorful harmonies in the music of Sur mes lèvres, and the Parisian stroll comes to a close with the whimsical lyricism and silvery shimmer of Coco avant Chanel, a tribute to French film, fashion, and music.

And although Desplat and the Traffic Quintet traverse the music of 13 wildly different films in just over an hour, all the individual stories blend together in the beautiful wash of the River Seine.

CONCERT PREVIEW: Viola and Vixens: Women in Classical Composition

Posted on March 31, 2016 by maestrobeats

by Maggie Molloy

If you attended a major symphony performance anywhere in the U.S. last year, chances are you did not see any works by women composers.

Infographic by Rachel Upton and Ricky O’Bannon.

In fact, if you’re like most Americans, it’s quite conceivable that you have never seen a live performance of a symphonic work by a woman composer.

According to a survey of the 22 largest American orchestras, women composers accounted for only 1.8 percent of the total pieces performed in the 2014-2015 concert season. And of the performances of works by living composers, women accounted for just 14.3 percent.

To say that women are underrepresented in the classical music canon would be an understatement. Women are clearly not being heard—the question is, why is nobody listening?

Amber Archibald-Sesek Learn about this and many more issues of feminism in classical music at Dr. Amber Archibald-Sešek’s FREE Viola and Vixens recital tonight, which features the WORLD PREMIERE of Seattle-based composer and clarinetist Angelique Poteat’s new piece, “Water Pastels.” Also included on the program are three other leading contemporary female composers: Rebecca Clarke, Libby Larsen, and Amanda Harberg.

I am also very proud to announce that yours truly will be presenting the pre-concert lecture on the past, present, and future of feminism in classical music.

My lecture will traverse the following topics:

1. Who are some of the key women composers in music history?
2. Why are these women are not included in the Western classical music canon?
3. How does this relate to larger issues in feminism?
4. How can we begin fixing the issue of women being underrepresented?
5. What might the future of classical music might look like?

I won’t give too much away, but I will say it’s an event you definitely do not want to miss!

Viola and Vixens is on Thursday, March 31 at Seattle University’s Pigott Auditorium on Capitol Hill. This concert is FREE, though donations will be accepted to help fund the Seattle U viola studio’s upcoming trip the American Viola Society conference in Oberlin, Ohio. The pre-concert lecture starts at 6:30 p.m., and the concert starts at 7:30 p.m. For more information, please visit this link.

Four Simple Ways to Make the Most of Your Practice Session

Posted on March 29, 2016 by maestrobeats

by Joshua Roman

I’m gearing up for the next trip as my 3 week stint at home in NYC comes to a close. It’s been nice to have so much time in one spot, especially as I’m putting the final touches on my new(ish) apartment space and getting my taxes out of the way. I love to use my time at home to prepare for upcoming performances, so that I can be present as much as possible while traveling. Lately I’ve been thinking about how to best use the practice time I have, whether at home or on the road, and some basic principles came to mind. I think they’re worth sharing. In fact, some of these principles are applicable to many tasks, pursuits, or other focus and skill-dependent activities – like writing a blog post!

Joshua Roman by Hayley Young 11 (Joshua Roman. Photo credit: Hayley Young)

1. Have a clear goal.

This is something that I’ve learned over the years, and I wish there were more emphasis placed on it when we are developing our practice habits. When you pick up your instrument, make sure you already know what you want to accomplish, and how much time you have to do it. Hours spent in the practice room are not the signifier of progress. Playing with the vague intent to generally “get better” is not as effective as having a basic plan to follow, and it’s better to change that goal mid-way through than have no goal at all. This goal can be as detailed as nailing a particular passage, or learning a certain amount of music and detail (I find this works best when you’ve studied the score beforehand with no instrument) or it can be a less tangible but still important goal, like setting aside time to:

2. Explore.

While task-oriented practicing is effective in achieving specific goals, music is also about exploring and finding your voice. New techniques, new sounds, sometimes even entirely new approaches or styles are waiting to be discovered if we would just experiment a little. I like to explore as part of my warm-up; mixing scales with little fragments of music I like, often adding some improv and loosely structured goofing-off. And by loosely structured, I really just mean setting a time limit so that I don’t neglect the more schedule-dependent results that I need to achieve. It’s nice to have time for this at the end of practicing, as well. This practice technique is particularly fun to throw into rehearsals. 🙂

3. Take breaks.

Breaks are an incredibly important part of practicing. Sometimes it feels like I get into a zone, and things just click. Often, after a practice session where I stay in that zone for too long, I find I didn’t really do anything once I got there other than just repeat things or run them for my own pleasure. That’s also important, but in terms of the lasting effects of any particular session, science and anecdotal evidence have shown us that letting the brain rest in between exercises (muscular or mental) increases our ability to retain the progress we’ve made. How many breaks you should take depends on the nature of what you’re practicing and way it fits into your day. I like to never play for more than 50 consecutive minutes, and if I’m working on something particularly gnarly or have a fast-approaching deadline, I cut that down to 30 minutes max. It might seem counter-intuitive, but in the end I get more out of the time I use and my muscles feel better as well. You can still do intense sessions; if I have a limited amount of time within the day to get things done I might do 50 min on, 10 min off for a few hours. I use a timer to help manage this, and generally stop right when it goes off unless I’m within one or two minutes from finishing whatever I’m working on at the moment. The timer I use is on my phone, which leads me to the next very important point:

4. Turn off distractions.

Phones have airplane mode, but mine might as well be called “practice mode”. It’s very important to make sure your mind is with you when you are practicing. This is the time you are developing the habits on which you will rely in performance, and the ability to focus is paramount. Shut the computer, hide the iPad, and turn off notifications on all of your devices. If you’re really concerned about missing an important message, many devices have features that will let you control just who can reach you at certain times. Otherwise, FOMO is not an excuse! You can check in on Snapchat and Facebook when the timer goes off; you’ll have to grab the phone to stop the timer anyway. For random ‘to do’s’ and inspirational thoughts that jump into your mind, set a pen and paper next to you to catch those items, and move on quickly. Personally, I do not consider the vibrate or silent mode extreme enough – airplane mode is the way to go.

One exception to this: I do enjoy experimenting with distraction sometimes, and think it’s worth it as a way to test your level of focus. I grew up in a house full of practicing, talking, and sometimes yelling (four kids, what do you expect?). Tuning out the noises around me was a necessity, and in some ways I’ve found that a busy practice environment can sharpen your focus if you approach it with the right attitude. Now, I will sometimes turn on the television and/or radio in my hotel room, and practice “against” it. I always feel good when I realize I have no clue what show is on even though it’s right in front of me. On the other end of the spectrum, I also like to practice with a sleep mask, and even earplugs, just to force myself to focus on the ear/mind/body connection.

Joshua Roman by Hayley Young 1 There are many elements to a good practice session, and everyone has their own unique personality which influences the nuances of their practice habits. What to practice, how much to practice, and when to practice are all important questions, and maintaining enough objectivity to know whether your practice technique is effective can be tough. I used to think I practiced best at night, but eventually realized that was just when I liked playing the most, because physical technique somehow gets easier for me later in the day. However, my best and longest lasting results currently come from first-thing-after-I-wake-up practicing. Ugh. Not a fun discovery. Sometimes that just means I take more naps, though…

(Joshua Roman. Photo credit: Hayley Young)

I strongly recommend that no matter how advanced you are, or happy with your routine, you change it up every once in a while to see what you might be missing. There’s always another way to look at things, and often we get comfortable with “good enough”, when “great” is just around the corner, waiting for us to look up and adjust our path.

These four simple tips are ways you can help bring the best attention to your practicing, whatever stage of a routine you may be in at the moment. Soon, I’ll be posting a few more specific thoughts on practicing in the 21st century. We may not be able to ask Brahms or Bach about fingerings, but we have a few tools of which they might well have been envious!

PLAYLIST:
Miles Davis – Kind of Blue (full album)
John Cage – “Dream” from Maurizio Grandinetti – Cage & Dowland: Equivoci
Ayub Ogada – En Mana Kuoyo (full album)

ALBUM REVIEW: Philip Glass and Nico Muhly ft. Angela and Jennifer Chun

Posted on March 28, 2016 by maestrobeats

by Geoffrey Larson

Angela and Jennifer Chun

The sister violin duo Angela and Jennifer Chun, originally from Seattle, have blazed new trails for the violin duo (and violin-viola duo) repertoire, commissioning new works by George Tsontakis and Osvaldo Golijov while performing existing rep ranging from Vivaldi to Martinu. Their new album presents music of Nico Muhly with the composer on the keyboards, together with music of Philip Glass, a composer with whom Nico has a close personal and musical relationship.
Philip Glass and Nico Muhly

The synthesized sounds of the Muhly Four Studies that open the recording add an ethereal backdrop to the motion of the two violins, and in general the four short movements are enjoyable to listen to. It’s amazing how much the synth background adds to the character of the violin duo, and the listener hears the various characters and emotions of each movement as if in suspended animation, like walking through a gallery of fossilized amber. Honest Music, and earlier Muhly, takes the duo in even more serious, occasionally dark directions. Angela and Jennifer attack this one with a fervent purposefulness, and display virtuosity with notes that occasionally leap up in high exclamations.

The Philip Glass works on the disc are arrangements, and are considerably less successful. Mad Rush was originally a piano work written for the Dalai Lama visit to New York in 1981, and In the Summer House was incidental music for a play by Jane Bowles based on a short story, originally written for violin, cello, voice, and synthesizer. Presented here solely on their own and navigating tricky arpeggios that would be no sweat on a keyboard instrument, the violin duo struggles throughout both Glass pieces. Inaccuracies of pitch and rhythm occur throughout, showcasing the difficulty of this arrangement of vignettes more than anything else.

Glass’ music is most successful when the repetitive figures are perfectly even and metronomical, with rhythms repeating smoothly and identically. The unevenness of the duo’s playing disrupts the spell, and though the violinists mostly eschew vibrato as they strive to portray the pure simplicity of this music, moments of poor intonation are made all the more obvious. Shaky bow pressure also becomes clearly apparent in softer passages. It’s likely that this music would be much better served in its original instrumentation; it’s also likely that this duo’s performances of Bartok and Shostakovich would be more enjoyable to listen to.

Geoffrey Larson is a host on Second Inversion and is the Music Director of Seattle Metropolitan Chamber Orchestra.