Animusic is a computer animation company specializing in the visualization of MIDI-based music. (http://www.animusic.com)
This is a computer generated video showing robots and self-operating instruments playing classical music inside a large building. There are pipe organs, clarinets, and flutes that emit light-beams as they play notes; some trumpets and tubas affixed to walls, and they stick out when they play individually; a one-stringed rock bass guitar played by robot fingers, two of which slide up and down its neck; a yellow synthesizer; and a drum set, and two large, curved instruments, the hammered dulcimer and the xylophone, played by robots that pivot and slide back and forth to hit their mark.
The music on this piece is from 3 movements of Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" ten-piano suite.
They are:
"Promenade" [from start to 1:38]
"Hut on Fowl's Legs (Baba Yaga)" [from 1:38 to 3:45]
"The Great Gate of Kiev" [from 3:45 to end]
Do you notice the picture on the bass drums? It is a drawing of the Great Gate of Kiev complete with a bell tower to its right.
The music sounds like Emerson, Lake & Palmer's version of "Pictures at an Exhibition".
[this text copied from Youtube]
Wouldn't it be great if our own Norma could emit laser light beams like that when David plays it? Especially for graduation ceremonies for Science faculty - that would be most appropriate!
Here's another one:
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
The Buzz Quiz
So this new fund-raiser seems to be achieving one of its aims - to put the fun into fund-raising.
Two Buzz Quizzes and money in the kitty we didn't have before. Brilliant!
The principle is to pay a dollar to answer the question by signing your name alongside a numbered space. Each numbered space represents a possible answer to a fiendishly difficult question. (Am I biased? I hope so!)
The quiz is based around the old fair stalwart - how many beans are there in this jar - you know the sort of thing.
Each question therefore has a number as an answer. Simple as.
All that's required is a sense of the ridiculous. And as was suggested the other night a sense of the psychology of the quiz-master; where might the winning space lie? How many spaces would she have put before and how many after the correct answer? Personally, I think you're are on a hiding to nothing, with trying to work that out! People have been trying to figure her out for a long time.
The quiz-mistress is also judge and jury and will brook no argument with the answer. You can try to double-guess, try to interpret her enigmatic smile - or her giggles and guffaws, but she'll not let on whether you are near the mark or not, as you sign your name.
Each question also has a definition - to eliminate any possible and lingering doubts that players may face.
So far the questions (all two of them) have been musical - but they won't all be. I will vary them to include some local Dunedin knowledge.
I think the answers are surprising, did you realise we have sung 61 pieces of music since 2004? No? Neither did I until I calculated it out.
May you all have as much fun in playing as I'm having in setting the questions!
Next week is Sales Table Night (first Tuesdays in the month always are), so there'll not be a Buzz Quiz.
But watch out for the Buzz Quiz Corner on every Tuesday evening rehearsal.
Happy Buzz Quizz-ing!
Saint Nicolas
Looking forward to the Choir's next concert in November we are staying with 20th century music, this time Benjamin Britten's Saint Nicolas.
The Cantata, Saint Nicolas, composed in 1948, presents legendary incidents in the life of Nicolas, patron saint of children, seamen, and travelers. The part of Nicolas is sung by the solo tenor, while the choir, transforming themselves into various contrasting characters during the drama, relate the adventures and tie the story together with prayers and praise.
The Choir is delighted to welcome back tenor David Hamilton for this performance.
Read more about Saint Nicolas the music and the Saint himself at www.stnicholascenter.org.
Here's a small sound byte from the Cantata:
Thursday, July 15, 2010
You're sounding too darn white!
I think African music has three great attributes: rhythm, movement, and richness.
I'm going to talk about these attributes, and also going to briefly discuss a few white musicians who are almost good enough to be black. And give you what I view as their "secret ingredient" that makes them so great.
Read on...
Rhythm
African music - and black music generally - dances in a way that white music just...doesn't. The rhythms are interesting, catchy and live.
It's music you have to learn and know. You can't read it in a concert off the page, and expect to do it justice.
So tough luck suckers, if you didn't attend the rehearsals and take the time to learn it!
This is music that, in many cases, has hung around for a long, long time before being written down, and oftentimes the notes on the page are just a very rough approximation of how things should sound.
It's actually kind of funny, because African music can really stump white music's highly trained experts. They don't "get" it.
So you see them scratching their heads, looking at the notes, singing everythng a bit too precisely and purely - and sounding altogether too..."white".
Because that's what that "white" sound is, of course - it's a reluctance to let go, to feel, and to really grok the music on a deep level.
Sounding white is about keeping the music in your head instead of in your belly and soul.
Do I dare say it? - a white sound is never a sexy sound, because it is anchored completely in the brain. But black music can be incredibly sexy, because it embraces the body-mind connection.
No wonder rock n roll, which has its roots in gospel and african music was so challenging to the white establishment when it first started taking hold in music!
Movement
The thing that struck me when I went to my first choral concert (which was when I was in my 20s) was how stiff and bored the singers looked.
Sometimes you couldn't even see them over their scores. Nothing but a tuft of hair. If they were bald, not even that!
The choir seemed to be totally disconnected with the music they were singing.
I just couldn't get it. Like - huh?
But I totally understood why the auditorium was three quarters empty.
Think of your typical white choir - or think back to how you stood in your last choral concert - and compare it to the choir in the clip below, taken from the classic movie, The Blues Brothers.
Nothing still and stiff about this!
Of course, a lot of what you're seeing in the clip above is Hollywood fooling, but if you watch the choir in the back (purple gowns), you'll see they're moving about, getting into the music, grooving with it.
They're fun and interesting to watch, and you just know there's no way they could sing half so well if they stood still and straight with their books up in front of their faces!
Music and movement are interconnected. You cannot have the one without the other - you really can't.
Unless performers feel the music in their bodies and react to it, providing cyclical positive rhythmic and tonal feedback within themselves, they're just providing a half-hearted show.
If it were me running our rehearsals I'd have us all up on our feet, stomping, dancing and grooving to the music. You should probably be thankful that it isn't me up front!
But you can hear whether a choir is moving or not in the quality of their sound. Just have a listen to one of my old choirs singing "The Lion Sleeps Tonight".
You can tell the choir was up on their feet, dancing around - you can hear it on the recording.
And yes, the audience loved it! And yes, the choir performed to packed audiences time and again, because word got out that they'd provide a performance - not just a bit of dull sound coming at the audience from behind black folders held up high!
[Melbourne Gay and Lesbian Chorus, The Lion Sleeps Tonight]
Richness
African music, gospel music, black music - and actually some of the music we're now starting to hear coming out of maori and island culture - has an intense richness to it.
I think that part of this is definitely genetic.
I've lived in Hong Kong (Asia) and in West Virginia (USA), and I've seen quite clearly that vocal placement is genetically based, to a point.
Whether you're a soprano or alto, tenor or bass, is due to the size of your vocal equipment, and the size of your body generally. But it also depends on whether you've been encouraged to train "up" or "down".
Hong Kong and China, having smaller people generally than Europe on average, naturally tends to produce more sopranos and tenors. Smaller bodies, smaller vocal equipment resulting in higher vocal ranges and lighter choral sounds.
And in West Virginia I couldn't help noticing that the larger, more solid black men and women were all basses and altos - real, deep, glorious altos, with the kind of voices I would kill to have!
Listen to black music, and you'll hear the strength of these deep, rich voices coming into their own.
In black music, alto isn't the middle-of-the-chord afterthought. It's up front and center stage. Alto power!
Sure, you'll hear soprano over the top, and counter-tenor too - but it's never the pure, light, laser-beam Cathedral sound we appreciate and produce en masse in the West.
Instead, it's a dramatic, rich, full-bodied, totally supported, chesty, throaty, rounded sound. Supported by solid, rich, deep notes in the bass line that are thrilling and inspiring and enticing.
And I could listen to it for years!
Good enough to be black!
The final secret ingredient is conviction.
This is why Freddie Mercury was Freddie Mercury - he sang with more conviction than just about any singer that ever lived.
And yes, Freddie Mercury was good enough to be black.
Singing with conviction. Compare his singing with Brian May's opening verses. May isn't a bad singer (he's actually quite good), but he lacks the conviction Mercury has in spades. And notice the body movement of Mercury. He couldn't have sung this well sitting still. RIP, Freddie.
Elvis knew this secret, final ingredient too. Hear him singing "Amazing Grace" and you would think you were listening to a black man. A large part of his popularity was due to the fact that he managed to recreate a black(ish) sound in a hunky white man.
New Zealand's Hollie Smith has conviction in bucketloads.
She's awesome, and was in Dunedin recently. Peggy and I went along to see her at refuel. Our response: WOW.
That's my assessment of black music.
So if you think you're not getting the African music we're doing right now, you need to get up, get grooving, sing with conviction, and feel the rhythm.
Your brain might not get it, but your body will!
I'm going to talk about these attributes, and also going to briefly discuss a few white musicians who are almost good enough to be black. And give you what I view as their "secret ingredient" that makes them so great.
Read on...
Rhythm
African music - and black music generally - dances in a way that white music just...doesn't. The rhythms are interesting, catchy and live.
It's music you have to learn and know. You can't read it in a concert off the page, and expect to do it justice.
So tough luck suckers, if you didn't attend the rehearsals and take the time to learn it!
This is music that, in many cases, has hung around for a long, long time before being written down, and oftentimes the notes on the page are just a very rough approximation of how things should sound.
It's actually kind of funny, because African music can really stump white music's highly trained experts. They don't "get" it.
So you see them scratching their heads, looking at the notes, singing everythng a bit too precisely and purely - and sounding altogether too..."white".
Because that's what that "white" sound is, of course - it's a reluctance to let go, to feel, and to really grok the music on a deep level.
Sounding white is about keeping the music in your head instead of in your belly and soul.
Do I dare say it? - a white sound is never a sexy sound, because it is anchored completely in the brain. But black music can be incredibly sexy, because it embraces the body-mind connection.
No wonder rock n roll, which has its roots in gospel and african music was so challenging to the white establishment when it first started taking hold in music!
Movement
The thing that struck me when I went to my first choral concert (which was when I was in my 20s) was how stiff and bored the singers looked.
Sometimes you couldn't even see them over their scores. Nothing but a tuft of hair. If they were bald, not even that!
The choir seemed to be totally disconnected with the music they were singing.
I just couldn't get it. Like - huh?
But I totally understood why the auditorium was three quarters empty.
Think of your typical white choir - or think back to how you stood in your last choral concert - and compare it to the choir in the clip below, taken from the classic movie, The Blues Brothers.
Nothing still and stiff about this!
Of course, a lot of what you're seeing in the clip above is Hollywood fooling, but if you watch the choir in the back (purple gowns), you'll see they're moving about, getting into the music, grooving with it.
They're fun and interesting to watch, and you just know there's no way they could sing half so well if they stood still and straight with their books up in front of their faces!
Music and movement are interconnected. You cannot have the one without the other - you really can't.
Unless performers feel the music in their bodies and react to it, providing cyclical positive rhythmic and tonal feedback within themselves, they're just providing a half-hearted show.
If it were me running our rehearsals I'd have us all up on our feet, stomping, dancing and grooving to the music. You should probably be thankful that it isn't me up front!
But you can hear whether a choir is moving or not in the quality of their sound. Just have a listen to one of my old choirs singing "The Lion Sleeps Tonight".
You can tell the choir was up on their feet, dancing around - you can hear it on the recording.
And yes, the audience loved it! And yes, the choir performed to packed audiences time and again, because word got out that they'd provide a performance - not just a bit of dull sound coming at the audience from behind black folders held up high!
Richness
African music, gospel music, black music - and actually some of the music we're now starting to hear coming out of maori and island culture - has an intense richness to it.
I think that part of this is definitely genetic.
I've lived in Hong Kong (Asia) and in West Virginia (USA), and I've seen quite clearly that vocal placement is genetically based, to a point.
Whether you're a soprano or alto, tenor or bass, is due to the size of your vocal equipment, and the size of your body generally. But it also depends on whether you've been encouraged to train "up" or "down".
Hong Kong and China, having smaller people generally than Europe on average, naturally tends to produce more sopranos and tenors. Smaller bodies, smaller vocal equipment resulting in higher vocal ranges and lighter choral sounds.
And in West Virginia I couldn't help noticing that the larger, more solid black men and women were all basses and altos - real, deep, glorious altos, with the kind of voices I would kill to have!
Listen to black music, and you'll hear the strength of these deep, rich voices coming into their own.
In black music, alto isn't the middle-of-the-chord afterthought. It's up front and center stage. Alto power!
Sure, you'll hear soprano over the top, and counter-tenor too - but it's never the pure, light, laser-beam Cathedral sound we appreciate and produce en masse in the West.
Instead, it's a dramatic, rich, full-bodied, totally supported, chesty, throaty, rounded sound. Supported by solid, rich, deep notes in the bass line that are thrilling and inspiring and enticing.
And I could listen to it for years!
Good enough to be black!
The final secret ingredient is conviction.
This is why Freddie Mercury was Freddie Mercury - he sang with more conviction than just about any singer that ever lived.
And yes, Freddie Mercury was good enough to be black.
Singing with conviction. Compare his singing with Brian May's opening verses. May isn't a bad singer (he's actually quite good), but he lacks the conviction Mercury has in spades. And notice the body movement of Mercury. He couldn't have sung this well sitting still. RIP, Freddie.
Elvis knew this secret, final ingredient too. Hear him singing "Amazing Grace" and you would think you were listening to a black man. A large part of his popularity was due to the fact that he managed to recreate a black(ish) sound in a hunky white man.
New Zealand's Hollie Smith has conviction in bucketloads.
She's awesome, and was in Dunedin recently. Peggy and I went along to see her at refuel. Our response: WOW.
That's my assessment of black music.
So if you think you're not getting the African music we're doing right now, you need to get up, get grooving, sing with conviction, and feel the rhythm.
Your brain might not get it, but your body will!
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Soweto String Quartet
Now here's a brilliant jazz-cum-classical-cum-very-African rhythmic sound. If you've never heard them you should open your ears. Do a You Tube search and turn up the volume. I defy you to keep sitting/standing still. OR listen to this clip
The group was formed by three brothers and a friend in Soweto Township in the mid 1980s. They are classically trained, and have managed to fuse contemporary jazz and their native African rhythms and intonations.
I'd love to see them live, wonder if they'll ever come to Dunedin?
I wonder how you could bottle their verve and energy? If I could, I'd give a large dose to everyone in the choir so we could do Zimbe justice.
Monday, July 5, 2010
Zimbe
Since we are getting well into rehearsing the Zimbe! songs now, I thought I might point singers to the official Zimbe! website for a look-see and finding out more about the work and Alexander L'Estrange, the composer.
"Composer Alexander L'Estrange, himself a highly regarded jazz pianist and bass player, has chosen songs from all over Africa and arranged them wonderfully, interleaving the choral writing with the instruments of the jazz ensemble."
Anyway, visit the Zimbe! site and read more about it there.
I have no doubt that City of Dunedin Choir and David Burchell will make a huge success of the forthcoming performance in September, but I cannot help wondering how easy (or hard) it will be for singers schooled mainly in the British tradition of choral singing, and mainly in music of the Renaissance era, to loosen up and warm up to traditional African folk music.
One main characteristic of 'original' traditional singers in Africa is that they had no voice tuition (and now I am not referring to the modern groups in Africa performing traditional songs) so their notes were often slurred. I've noticed that L'Estrange tries to portray that effect with small grace notes. The danger is that singers of Western cultures will sing the notes too precisely as written.
Something to keep in mind is that traditionally the African tribes sang while they worked, walked long distances, danced and, of course, also while sitting quietly in pensive mood. Mostly there is much movement associated with their singing. Westerners need to "loosen up" and feel the rythm in their bones if they want to sound authentic singing these songs of Africa.
Before coming to New Zealand I worked at the South African Bureau of Standards in Pretoria, which had 1400 employees at the time. The SABS also had a choir - directed by a capable young African woman. The membership was about one-third European (yes, 'moi' included) to two-thirds African peoples. The choir sang, but for one exception, only African songs. While rehearsing or performing the singers never stood with their feet planted - they always swayed from one foot to the other or forwards and backwards, even taking a step or two; like each song had its own unwritten dance. Someone would spontaneously and very naturally take the lead moving this way or that, and the rest would follow - the movements were never scripted or rehearsed. Quite naturally the European members would follow the lead of the African members. It always looked right - because the rythms came from inside.
Ah yes, you must be wondering what the 'exception' was - are you ready?
Gaudiamus igitur !!! Mmmm... that performance was less successful, the African membership found the Latin words and precision of the music exceedingly hard to master. Anyway, much fun was had by all.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Tula Baba
Looking up all these African folk songs reminded me of one of my favourite childhood lullabys, Tula Baba. The Zulu mothers use this song to help their crying babies to relax and then sleep.
This recording: Music from Ipi Tombi the Movie. © Copyright Swann Records.
The lyrics with English translation:
Tula Tu Tula baba Tula sana
Tul'umam 'uzobuya ekuseni
Tula Tu Tula baba Tula sana
Tul'umam 'uzobuya ekuseni
(be silent baby keep silent
mama will be back in the morning).
Hush my baby close your eyes
Time to fly to paradise
Till the sunlight brings
you home
You must dream
your dreams alone
Tula Tu Tula baba Tula sana
Tul'umam 'uzobuya ekuseni
Tula Tu Tula baba Tula sana
Tul'umam 'uzobuya ekuseni
(be silent baby keep silent
mama will be back in the morning).
Hush my baby go to sleep
I'll be with you counting sheep
Dreams will take you far away
Sleep until the break of day
Tula Tu Tula baba Tula sana
Tul'umam 'uzobuya ekuseni
(be silent baby keep silent
mama will be back in the morning).
Dudududududud ...
This recording: Music from Ipi Tombi the Movie. © Copyright Swann Records.
The lyrics with English translation:
Tula Tu Tula baba Tula sana
Tul'umam 'uzobuya ekuseni
Tula Tu Tula baba Tula sana
Tul'umam 'uzobuya ekuseni
(be silent baby keep silent
mama will be back in the morning).
Hush my baby close your eyes
Time to fly to paradise
Till the sunlight brings
you home
You must dream
your dreams alone
Tula Tu Tula baba Tula sana
Tul'umam 'uzobuya ekuseni
Tula Tu Tula baba Tula sana
Tul'umam 'uzobuya ekuseni
(be silent baby keep silent
mama will be back in the morning).
Hush my baby go to sleep
I'll be with you counting sheep
Dreams will take you far away
Sleep until the break of day
Tula Tu Tula baba Tula sana
Tul'umam 'uzobuya ekuseni
(be silent baby keep silent
mama will be back in the morning).
Dudududududud ...
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