Suburban Scene Part 1

I'm finally getting to work writing out pieces of music that i intended to finish 3 years ago. The work, which was framed with parts written while i was still in highschool, has waited for 3 years for me to feel musically mature enough to make something coherent out of it.

While i dont necessarily think i'm "musically mature" Its more or less high time that i get to work on it, regardless as to how i feel about my own compositional voice. Everything is a learning process, so why not just dive in? I'm not going to get anywhere with it if i dont try. So thats what i've undertaken, the first piece is almost finished and... its intended to be a set of maybe 8 piano pieces. So one of 8 so far... a ways to go, but i have a lot of time and i'm in no rush. They've waited for 3 years or more... they can sit on the burner a while.

Anyway, the interesting part about all this is that i knew what i wanted to call this set of pieces long before i knew exactly what would be in it. And the name of it actually gave the name of this blog. The set is entitled "Music for a Suburban Scene" and its sort of my attempt at a summation and melding of the musical influences that inevitably resulted from my years in suburban america. Kinda a lofty goal, i'd say. But hey, aim high right? Really, its a set of pieces meant to evoke life in a cul-de-sac, life around SUVs , Burger King, Safeways, traffic and parking lots.life around families with teenagers, dogs, Sprinklers and unkept lawns. I'm not actually sure as to the titles of all the set but i sure as hell know that one of them is going to called "The Mandingo", you can google to figure out what that means.

other ideas for titles were "beige carpets" and "tricycles".

I guess those are still on the drawing board. Anyway, this first piece has turned out to be much more technically demanding than i expected, and it was *supposed* to be the simple introduction. Ah well, makes things more fun to play.

This is the only opera i can honestly say i enjoy, and thankfully some kind dude posted the entire thing on youtube.

I fucking love mussorgsky and I wish he had written more in his short life.

I am guilty of not always viewing some of the blogs I hold in highest esteem and link on the sidebar there. But i recently stumbled upon some excellent posts in On An Overgrown path (which is named after one of my favorite works for piano)

This post reflects several of my thoughts at the moment, so i figure I best divert attention that way.

My one beef is with the term itself.- "world music" seems like an insult if we somehow exclude western classical traditions from the group. If we're talking about "traditional world musics" It better as hell include it ALL, balinese gamelan to native american pow-wow musics, to shostakovich and back. (i dont think many people would approve, though) Otherwise, we're using an essentially categorizing music in a very ethnocentric way- ie. "classical music" and "everything else thats traditional on the planet", knowing full well that separate is inherently unequal in this kind of dialogue**, I would propose that we specify which traditions we're talking about. If its Northern Hindustani Classical or Tuvan Throat singing, or Taureg traditional music. "world music" just doesn't cut it.

**I'm not going to sit around and discuss music in terms of one kind being more or less important than some other kind, and thereby creating value judgments about the nature of different music traditions. Nor am I automatically calling all music equal. The "importance" in the western sense can not be applied to other cultures where music functions and is perceived differently, and the musical values do not necessarily translate. It is simply stupid to try weigh the importance of someone like Veena Sahasraddhe against Pavarotti, just as one does not judge a Kandinsky as they would a Botticelli.

Yesterday I went to the capitol hill block party, good times.

Fleet Foxes played, it was good stuff. Listened to different bands, but the foxes were why I even went. That, and i had nothing else to do yesterday.

Good band, great music. Local group who might be bringing plad back, or at least in this region. They've certainly cultivated a 1970s eco-hippy mountain-man image.

I approve.

This music gets my back all tingly and crap.

no, really. Just this first movement. I love the whole thing, but man, this is gorgeous. And is it wrong for me to hear just a little Don Giovanni in it? I've known this music for years, but im back to it, after watching an episode of Curb your enthusiasm, which features two excerpts of Berlioz.

I said to my roommates. "THATS BERLIOZ!!! OMFG!!!"

alright, maybe not quite like that, but pretty close. so now im on a romanticist kick i guess. Berlioz and Liszt. Oh, trusty old Liszt, i always listen to him. Anytime i need something cool to listen to, i pull out a transcendental etude or mephisto waltz. This morning i was almost late to work because i was obsessing over the beauty of this performance:



I love the intensity. Its really just perfect and amazing.

{romanitic} sigh.

Beirut captures my sentimentality

And im talking about the band, not the Lebanese capital. (which i'd love to visit some day)

Nantes is the second track on Beirut's second album The Flying Club Cup, a great new album. While I generally make a point of strongly disliking people who are my age or younger and more successful than me, I'll make an exception for Beirut's lead singer.

The music in this album is an eclectic- mixing folk, french chanson, brass band, even lounge sounds and other influences into a sweet lyrical and graceful expression. There are many french references in the music and title, which is kinda fun (for me anyway). The greatest song on the album is the sublime Mausoleum, but this is less of a album review and more of a personal note, so im not going to dive into any detail, so just trust me.... its good.

Nantes, the song makes no references to my city in its lyrics (its MY city now days), but just that title is enough to capture my attention, and the beauty of the song taps into my nostalgia for last year and my idle life as un etudiant etranger en france.

But the place (though beautiful and charming as it is) i miss a lot less than my friends i left.

HOT

Its hot.

Its 70 degrees at 8:30 in the morning. Yesterday it was 92 here, and last night my bedroom did not dip below 85 degrees, ugh. Seattle is in heat-wave, a rare but shocking occurrence that arrives a few times every summer. Since we (collectively as the people of seattle) own no air conditioners, we have to bear it out with fans and crap. And let me tell you- you can fan yourself all you want, but when your apartment is, at 7 in the evening, hovering around 93 degrees, it doesnt really matter. Its been hot since friday, and its going to stay nice and warm all week long.

Don't get me wrong, its gorgeous weather, and i'm really doing well on my farmers tan, but man oh man, it comes as a surprise after the shittiest spring in memory.