Looking for unusual gifts for the musicians in your life? Try this link:
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/unique-unusual-gifts.
Among other things you can have a 20-watt hand-wired head. Now, that's unusual. I'm quite glad I don't have a hand-wired head. The one I've got is confusing enough at the best of times.
Another option is Minotaur stands. No wait, that's monitor stands. Always did have trouble spelling certain words. Similar, for instance. I always used to spell it as similiar, like familiar. Seemed logical at the time.
You can get livid guitar wings. I don't think these are akin to chicken wings, but they sound pretty tasty, kind of spicy, as though someone had put jalapeños in them. Describing them as livid does give the taste buds something to think about - or hope to avoid.
The livid guitar wings may have a connection with the pink taco closed-back guitar speakers. What is it about these musical devices? Are they all designed by Mexican chefs?
The mind kind of boggles (not hard, if it's been hand-wired.)
Incidentally, the pink tacos will set you back about $2000NZ. Kind of expensive for a Christmas present. But hey, if you can't buy expensive for friends, who can you buy expensive for?
Showing posts with label Head. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Head. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 09, 2014
Tuesday, October 14, 2014
Over-marked
I do quite a bit of transcribing of music using the computer programme, Sibelius. Transcriptions from printed copies or manuscripts are usually made so they can be transposed into another key. Sibelius, overall, makes the job very easy. I wish I'd had the programme when I was young and was first writing music, but of course at that stage there were no computers, let alone programmes like Sibelius. I often dreamed then of having a typewriter which you could use to print music, but the idea remained a pipe dream.
Anyway, the job of transcribing is generally pretty straightforward, except when you come across a piece of music that is so heavily marked by the composer with instructions as to how to sing or play the piece that you wonder whether he was having a bit of a fit on the day he wrote it.
A case in point is the piece I'm doing at the moment, Nocturne, by Michael Head, from a series of four songs under the general title of The Rim of the Moon. I really enjoy Head's music: it's a delight to play and the vocal lines are usually top notch, lying well for the singers.
Nocturne is a bit different. It's more dramatic in style than most of Head's work (though he settles down into his usual mode late in the piece). Consequently he's marked it very heavily, even with some contradictory markings. In one place the pianist is supposed to increase in volume when there's not actually anything to play. In another the tempo is marked both a tempo (go back to the original tempo) as well as Poco piu mosso (go a little faster). It's not actually possible to do that, as I'm sure Mr Head knew. Perhaps an editor got hold of the music and overwhelmed it with markings according to some reasoning we're no longer party to.
Half the notes in the vocal line and in the piano part are given stress marks. If you obeyed every one you'd never get to the end of the piece. And if there aren't stress marks there are accents, the sort that indicate you should give the note more weight than usual. There's a molto rit when the piece has barely started, and a poco rit only two bars after the a tempo. The singer, at one point, is expected to both return to a tempo and sing con moto simultaneously, which is rather like coming back to your normal walking pace while trying to go faster.
The first half or more of the piece is in a kind of recitativo style (that's indicated as well). So there is some excuse for giving the singer an indication of where to move forward and where to pull back. But most singers would do these things instinctively, and the excess of markings merely get in the way. IMHO.
It's like getting a play script from the director in which he's gone through and marked how you should stress each word, speak each phrase, where you should breathe, how loud you should be here and soft there. The lines of the original script would be buried beneath all of these markings.
Transcribing Mr Head's song would be fine except that as the transcriber I'm supposed to make sure I include all these extra details. I'm greatly tempted to leave them out, though of course that would mean not doing the job properly. It's very possible I'll miss one or two, even after a thorough proof-reading. But I'll grit my teeth and do my best.
Anyway, the job of transcribing is generally pretty straightforward, except when you come across a piece of music that is so heavily marked by the composer with instructions as to how to sing or play the piece that you wonder whether he was having a bit of a fit on the day he wrote it.
A case in point is the piece I'm doing at the moment, Nocturne, by Michael Head, from a series of four songs under the general title of The Rim of the Moon. I really enjoy Head's music: it's a delight to play and the vocal lines are usually top notch, lying well for the singers.
Nocturne is a bit different. It's more dramatic in style than most of Head's work (though he settles down into his usual mode late in the piece). Consequently he's marked it very heavily, even with some contradictory markings. In one place the pianist is supposed to increase in volume when there's not actually anything to play. In another the tempo is marked both a tempo (go back to the original tempo) as well as Poco piu mosso (go a little faster). It's not actually possible to do that, as I'm sure Mr Head knew. Perhaps an editor got hold of the music and overwhelmed it with markings according to some reasoning we're no longer party to.
Half the notes in the vocal line and in the piano part are given stress marks. If you obeyed every one you'd never get to the end of the piece. And if there aren't stress marks there are accents, the sort that indicate you should give the note more weight than usual. There's a molto rit when the piece has barely started, and a poco rit only two bars after the a tempo. The singer, at one point, is expected to both return to a tempo and sing con moto simultaneously, which is rather like coming back to your normal walking pace while trying to go faster.
The first half or more of the piece is in a kind of recitativo style (that's indicated as well). So there is some excuse for giving the singer an indication of where to move forward and where to pull back. But most singers would do these things instinctively, and the excess of markings merely get in the way. IMHO.
It's like getting a play script from the director in which he's gone through and marked how you should stress each word, speak each phrase, where you should breathe, how loud you should be here and soft there. The lines of the original script would be buried beneath all of these markings.
Transcribing Mr Head's song would be fine except that as the transcriber I'm supposed to make sure I include all these extra details. I'm greatly tempted to leave them out, though of course that would mean not doing the job properly. It's very possible I'll miss one or two, even after a thorough proof-reading. But I'll grit my teeth and do my best.
Thursday, September 19, 2013
Michael Head & Robert Farrar Capon
Wikipedia is rapidly catching up on all sorts of information, including biographies of people. Some of these biographies didn't exist up until relatively recently. Two such are those of the composer Michael Head (1900-1976), and the Episcopalian priest and chef, Robert Farrar Capon - Capon, born in 1925, died earlier this month.
Michael Head was almost entirely a composer of songs, and I've been accompanying people singing Michael Head songs since I first began this role. A large number of his songs have survived in the repertoires of singing teachers and their pupils, and as examination works, and so on. Here's a 'not comprehensive' list of his songs. To my surprise there are far more than I've ever performed, and I'm interested to note that one I heard at the Senior Vocal Competitions the other day, and had never heard before, is actually one of his. When I heard it I said to the person I was sitting beside - that can't be a Michael Head song surely? I thought this mostly because it was quite different in style and tone to many of those I know. But there it is: Back to Hilo.
Head was unusual in that he used to present his songs not by accompanying another singer, but as both singer and accompanist simultaneously. He must be one of the few composers ever to have done this (amongst art song composers, I mean).
I was first introduced to the books of Robert Farrar Capon when I began work at the Otago Church Bookstore. I'd never heard of him before, and was struck by his witty and delightful style, his seeming willingness to go beyond the pale in terms of what might be called orthodox theology (he never went beyond truth, though), and his attempts to surprise us into rethinking parables and stories and Gospel texts we'd heard too many times and had become over-familiar with. I've read most of his books more than once - that is, of the ones I've read once (there are a number I've never got hold of) - and they always bear re-reading.
Sometimes he overdid the wit, and the surreal approach. Sometimes you have to take what he says with a grain of salt, because he can get a little carried away. Sometimes he was almost so clever that you lost the point of what he was saying, but undeniably he has an important place in teaching people about God's grace to humanity, God's love for humanity, and the importance of the cross.
Michael Head was almost entirely a composer of songs, and I've been accompanying people singing Michael Head songs since I first began this role. A large number of his songs have survived in the repertoires of singing teachers and their pupils, and as examination works, and so on. Here's a 'not comprehensive' list of his songs. To my surprise there are far more than I've ever performed, and I'm interested to note that one I heard at the Senior Vocal Competitions the other day, and had never heard before, is actually one of his. When I heard it I said to the person I was sitting beside - that can't be a Michael Head song surely? I thought this mostly because it was quite different in style and tone to many of those I know. But there it is: Back to Hilo.
Head was unusual in that he used to present his songs not by accompanying another singer, but as both singer and accompanist simultaneously. He must be one of the few composers ever to have done this (amongst art song composers, I mean).
I was first introduced to the books of Robert Farrar Capon when I began work at the Otago Church Bookstore. I'd never heard of him before, and was struck by his witty and delightful style, his seeming willingness to go beyond the pale in terms of what might be called orthodox theology (he never went beyond truth, though), and his attempts to surprise us into rethinking parables and stories and Gospel texts we'd heard too many times and had become over-familiar with. I've read most of his books more than once - that is, of the ones I've read once (there are a number I've never got hold of) - and they always bear re-reading.
Sometimes he overdid the wit, and the surreal approach. Sometimes you have to take what he says with a grain of salt, because he can get a little carried away. Sometimes he was almost so clever that you lost the point of what he was saying, but undeniably he has an important place in teaching people about God's grace to humanity, God's love for humanity, and the importance of the cross.
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