Analytical Notes
Additional Thoughts on Why
If you insist on meanings . . .
I do not think the following comments are appropriate
for program notes, but I offer them for interested performers, composers and
technically oriented listeners.
This piece uses augmentation to generate variety
from its unity. The opening material is
heard in three different speeds, at the 16th, eighth and quarter note
levels. There are about 24 statements
of the opening motive running throughout the piece. Its construction is rather simple, although since the quarter
note speed sounds so different from the 16th note speed, it is not at all
monotonous. The consistent 3+3+3+4
metrical pattern keeps it interesting too.
(A comment for performers preparing this piece: I internalized the 13/16
meter by using the Indian counting syllables “takita takita takita takadimi.”)
-- fragmented polyrhythm in the accompaniment and
ABABA form
This piece gets its rhythmic character from a
metametrical* approach. There is a
layer with a rhythmic cell of seven eighth notes running against a layer with
two slightly different groups of six eighth notes apiece (7 v. 12). (As conceived, two related ideas, each 7
sixteenths long, alternate in one layer, and an idea 3 quarter-notes long
alternates with a slight variation, also 3 quarter-notes long, in the other
layer.) While it would be sensible to
notate the piece in 3/4 because of the six eighth-note cell length, the harmony
changes every four or eight beats, so harmonically the piece is in 4/4. Counterpoint between pitch and rhythm!
*a term borrowed from Kyle Gann.
The piece is based on triadic harmony, with tonal
centers usually a third apart. There is
one moment of a dominant-tonic move in F minor (measure 21), but that is only
in passing. The main harmonic tension
in the piece is between the aforementioned third-separated tonal centers, and
the tension between major and minor qualities above shared roots.
There are at least two levels of rhythmic conflict in this piece. It is notated in 5/4, but the right hand is in 2/4 and the left hand is in 5/8. The eighth notes in the left hand are against triplet eighth notes in the right hand. The vocal part also projects 5/8 ("two stocks to Mannheim").
The line "head in my basement" suggested to
me a hidden underworld, so this piece is based on a symmetrical artificial
scale, which is further supplemented by parallel fourths. Rhythmically, there is less structure to
this piece, although I did incorporate many groups of five eighth notes in length.
Although the notated meter is a friendly 3/4, the
core rhythmic feel of the piece is a five-beat pattern in 24/16. The first beat is light by one sixteenth:
4+5+5+5+5. The first beat is often host
to a 16th-note sextuplet.
The left and right hand parts are often out of synch in the 24/16 feel,
so that is why the piece is notated in a “neutral” meter of 3/4. Contrasting sections (mm 24-29 and other
places) are in 5/8 that are a development of the 16th-note sextuplet
subdivision.
Isorhythm! A chromatically descending color gets cut
to a simple talea, starting in m. 9.
The 6-pitch color is 3 pairs of falling perfect fourths, descending
chromatically. The 5-note talea is, in
relative durations, 2-1-rest-1-1-2-rest, the rest = 1. The
voice part borrows pitches from the passing accompaniment around an additional
tonal center (B at the beginning). The
left hand and right hand parts are always off by a dotted quarter note, and in
the 3/4 meter, there is at times a 2 v. 3 suggestion. Inversion, augmentation and retrograde techniques are used, and
these are often elided, and there are two large-scale shifts up in
transposition.
Tin Can Island,
The accompaniment figure should fall idiomatically
in the hand.
The Albion
Deity Thing
The tension of the 10/16 meter eventually yields to
a more relaxed 6/8.
While I did not plan any systematic linking of the
songs, there are two traits that show up in a handful of them. One is the use of the interval of the sixth
melodically, and the other is a general tendency towards "five-ish-ness”
in the rhythms. Dust Light
features a prominent rising sixth in the melody. The five shows up in the "knocking" in measures
45-48. The Dog Song has a five note pattern layered on top in measures
11-19 and at other points. The Imperative Song (and this is
pushing the idea) has an ambitus of a sixth.
What Is Force? and Findings both have a falling sixth in
the melody. What Is Force? has a layer of 5/8 going on. A 5-grouping shows up in the left-hand
accompaniment starting in measure 15 of Findings. In Masks,
a falling sixth is the second interval in the melodic motive (measures 26-29)
and there are 5/16 beats and 5/8 measures.
In Tin Can Island, the
"sad feast" is on a falling sixth (measure 29). A five-grouping shows up in the
accompaniment starting in measure 14, and there are many groupings of 5 16th notes or five triplet sixteenths, and 5/16
is featured at the end. In The Albion Deity Thing, the opening
motive starts with a falling sixth, and the five idea obviously permeates the
10/16 meter.
My Albion Deity Songbook in a way describes
how I hear songs. There is a well-known
Gary Larson cartoon that depicts what dogs really hear when humans talk to them. The thought balloon above the dog's head
reads "blah blah blah blah blah blah blah GINGER blah blah blah blah blah
blah GINGER blah blah blah blah.”* In
many ways that is how I hear art songs and pop songs: "music music music music WORDS music music music WORDS music
music music music." I find a song
recital to be the most challenging and taxing listening experience. You have this great poetry, often quite
complex in its meaning, and this great music together. Even with the best diction from the singer,
I find it very easy to slip into a strictly musical mode of listening, and to
loose track of the playful and meaningful connections between the text and the
music. Often, I feel I enjoy a song
most if I am following the score, and even then, I wind up paying a
disproportionate amount of attention to the musical content. So I have designed the Albion Deity song
texts to be occasionally poignant, where the text might jump out and create an
impression, particularly a feeling, but in general the text is part of the
fabric (the texture!) of the piece, as much as if it were in just an
accompaniment figure.
*(Opera’s visual and dramatic inputs make it an altogether different case, and supertitles modify the situation further. Although just listening to opera can produce the same effect: "music music music music TRISTAN music music music ISOLDE music music LIEBE music music," or, in Italian, "music music music music VENDETTA music music music . . .")
This is why I think some of these songs would work great
on a song recital program. They would
be a little break for the audience’s interpretive engines. On the other hand, these texts hovering on
the edge of meaning might be tiresome to the audience if too many of them are
presented together. That is why I’d
recommend presenting no more than four or five at a time. (However, if performers want to do all ten
as a set, they would hear no complaints from me!)
Over 1,000 Chinese coal miners die every year.
“the ghosts seek out an aimed plane” –
9/11. Images of the resultant dust . .
. the Biblical ‘dust to dust’ . . . for me, the net meaning of the poem and
setting is the resilience of life.
The Dog Song (Fine Leaf Canine Guests)
“Dalton does in the dew” – my image is a Golden
Retriever by the name of Dalton peeing on a lawn in the early morning . . .
“Monk” – composer Mike
Fiday’s cat is named Monk
Very suggestive of e.e. cummings! It is advice: Live moderately; have a
positive attitude; love someone with passion.
Presidential, Congressional and intelligence agency
“findings” seem to be in the news, but the POV of this poem is more personal.
A slick real estate developer makes a pitch for
building a development that destroys wetlands.
Here’s one that has fewer easily available meanings .
. . word choice is really driven by rhythm and sound. A fine restaurant near the San Francisco opera house is called “Citizen Cake;” for me there is a
pleasant resonance between “cake opinion” and “citizen force” from What is
Force? The first stanza seems to be
internal and introspective; the second stanza is a crowd scene.
The Albion Deity Thing
Bowman – the astronaut in 2001, A Space Odyssey
“as those entities” -- redolent of legalese; it seems that lawyers working for the wealthy Mr. Johnson have contrived Enron-like corporate shelters that somehow “own God.”
~~DC
Meckler
June
2007