The key to holding listeners’ attention is to keep them wondering what the composer will do next. Whether its a film score, rock band or a classical music concert hall, audiences want to have experiences ranging from astonishment and surprise to awe and amazement. The twentieth century saw a wave of shock and disruption in many music formats. Today we explore the basic tools a composer uses for eliciting emotional responses from their listeners. More in the show notes at accelerandocast.com
In the twentieth century music moves toward avant-garde or experimental and controversial. John Milton Cage (1912-1992) was an American composer who embraced all of these. A pioneer in chance music, he used non-standard instruments including pianos altered by putting objects in the piano strings to make unique sounds. Cage studied with Henry Cowell and Arnold Schoenberg in the 30’s, two composers considered influential in the avant-garde era, but Cage would move the needle in another direction…East perhaps. In the 40’s Cage was influenced by the Zen Buddists. His music reflects southeast Asian philosophies and aestetics. He employed the I Ching as a compositional tool in his music. But Cage is best known for his piece called 4’33” where the sounds in the room are the composition.
Acoustic Engineering in music venues has a few basic rules that architects rely on: the size, the shape and the materials on the reflective surfaces. So planning ahead is crucial, but even after the hall is finished, acousticians can sometimes tweak the room by modifying the surfaces and even the shape. A proscenium may or may not help the sound of opera singers or orchestras on stage and new halls are trending towards leaving out the proscenium in an attempt to remove the theatre’s Fourth Wall. The Seiji Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood has no proscenium or window as it includes the audience in the space. Opera Bastille in Paris attempts to erase the frame and draws the audience in with the plain arena shape that offers no balconies , no presedential boxes, and all the seats offer the same comfort and unfettered view of the stage and supertitles. Opera Bastille and Seiji Ozawa share the quality of a less formal atmosphere, a space for the people, not for dignitaries or crowns. More in the show notes at https://accelerandocast.com/show_notes/
Putting words to music is a skill composers and songwriters address in their Operas, Cantatas, and anything that has a script. What is the process for these artists? Some start with the words, others like David Byrne prefer to start with the music but have switched the order depending on the project. Elton John and Bernie Taupin talked about their process in interviews just after “Your Song” became a hit. Sometimes changing the words even a little to fit the music is not an option, as Paula Kimper put Walt Whitman’s epic poem “Song of Myself’ to music. More in the show notes at https://accelerandocast.com/show_notes/
Concert pianist Nanette Kaplan Solomon has been including women composers in her programming and presenting lecture recitals on the works of women composers for thirty years. In this episode we talk about her recordings, composers she’s met, works she commissioned and her passionate dedication to the subject which has taken her to forums all around the world. We also talk about the lives of Clara Schumann, Fanny Mendelsohn and Maria Mozart, three women who’s writing talents were kept in the shadows, getting a bit of attention in the wake of their male relatives. Clara, married to Robert, was well known for her concert performances, but Maria Mozart and Fanny Mendelssohn had less exposure, except for their connection to their siblings Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Felix Mendelssohn. Like most women before the twentieth century, their roles as wives in upper class society prevented them from performing in public or seeking to publish their compositions.
How will you take your art to the 10x? Linear is out of fashion. Can music scale to the degree it can compete in a world that expects only exponential growth? More in the show notes at accelerandocast.com
The Orion Quartet announced their retirement this Spring, playing their last concert of a 36 year run. New quartets are rising, including the Beo Quartet-another one with Pittsburgh roots and again started by two brothers. The business plan for a string quartet is an unusual one. It relies on four equal partners, and each have to pull their weight if the group is to survive. More in the show notes at https://accelerandocast.com/show_notes/
Every human voice is unique, and each singer has a range of notes that rings in their head strong like a bell. Pop stars and Opera divas/divos have made fortunes from these notes. In the classical recording industry while world class orchestras are doing less recording, Opera remains a consistant source of revenue. Singers change the Opera, every performance is a showcase for a different voice. More in the show notes at https://accelerandocast.com/show_notes/
With Google jumping into the AI music platform race, we can expect a lot of people will be signing up soon. Will it be disapointing? Or will people want the next plaything? Depends on whether you care about the tech or the music. If you just want to be in the know about everything new, you might enjoy exploring the new toy.
Music gets a bad rap in curriculums and in the hierarchy of evolution. Do we need music to survive? Has music ever saved anyone’s life? When studied specifically for it’s use, music is found adjacent to our most important instincts for survival.
