The Baroque sonata form often contained a 3/4 or 6/8 meter movement, and horns would feature prominently. The horn can also sustain a pedal tone or sound the root of a chord to support the other four instruments.

There was lots ‘o repertoire written for woodwind quintet in the 20th century. There is a woodwind quintet nestled in with a string quartet, augmented percussion, and celeste in Benjamin Britten’s Turn of the Screw. Britten wrote the score for “eleven solo instruments,” and organized his twelve-tone row into triadic tonal centers so the ear hears common practice harmony.

Three of the woodwind quintet members double on other instruments. Flute/alto flute/piccolo, oboe/English horn, clarinet/bass clarinet and C clarinet. Britten’s orchestration is amazing. He creates a broader palette of pleasing sound than any other 12-tone composer.

The opera is based on the Henry James novella, and is every bit as scary. There are only four characters: a young boy and his older sister, the new governess, and two very sinister servants, a woman and a man. It’s a plum role for a boy soprano, and is not often performed.

I had a stupendous senior year in college. Actually two years. Sonoma State University in the late 70’s, faculty all Berkeley ph.d.s, slathered in non-western and experimental music. A lucky, lucky woman. I’ve been fortunate in having an arts management career on both the east coast and the west coast. Austin is not as fertile ground for me, or at least not yet. I’ve been fortunate in what I’ve found, and tonight I am very grateful for that.

This is the cool-down for The Good Musician, and I have learned quite a bit, especially about the pedagogy of blogging. Quite a challenge with a day gig, performing, and a tour. I’ll still write about music in my other blog (shameless promotion– http://friedokraproductions.blogspot.com), but you’ll have to put up with the rest of my nonsense if you dare.

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Gardner also illustrates the relationship of the chakras to the overtone series. When you produce a pure tone, either vocally or instrumentally, it sets up vibrations that are strong enough to be heard, occurring mathematically on a vibrating string. Going from the root to the octave, the fifth, fourth, third, and so on…

This is one of the most effective, quick warm-ups for a flutist, and a tip I give every student: Play a low C, then focus the airstream slightly to sound the octave, the fifth, through the overtones, ascending as far as possible and still maintain some tone quality, then descending, one breath. Don’t force, feel your way up and down until you can seamlessly adjust your embouchure in that especially challenging third octave. It will limber up your chops in less than 5 minutes.

Same thing with voice. Start as low as comfortable and hum into your nose as high as you can, smoothly turn around and come back down to the “fry,” or when your voice rumbles in your chest, like a monster talking. Same quick results as above.

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Dowd questions the validity of a 1993 UC Irvine research project completed by psychologist Gordon Shaw that gave rise to the belief that listening to Mozart improves IQ. An enterprising musician jumped on the idea and trademarked the term Mozart Effect in 1996.

The data was never reproduced, and troubling information began to come out of the original study. A subsequent German study found that music training did contribute to higher scores, concluding that it was the actual act of playing music that stimulated the brain, rather than passively listening to it. Not only that, positive effects were positive only because the participant was predisposed to enjoy that genre of music.

This is a cracking good read, illustrating how a flawed study can generate a copyrighted product, a popular myth fueled by the media, and a blind belief that is next to impossible to eradicate from the collective consciousness.

I prefer to listen to Mozart well away from men in white coats.

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1. Kiss Me Kate (1953) Howard Keel and Kathryn Grayson look fabulous and really wail on the Cole Porter score.

2. Psycho (1960) Pretty much the exemplar, taking strings to the edge, presaging the era of electronic film music

3. One Eyed Jacks (1961) Brando directs Brando, Karl Malden, and Katy Jurado to a score as searingly gorgeous as the Big Sur setting

4. A tie, for obvious reasons The Big Chill (1983) and
Forrest Gump (1994) All-time Boomer favorites–for good reason!

5. Stop Loss (2008) Kimberly Pierce’s laser precise film is a must see and hear. It’s an epiphanic anthem for the current generation of young men and women at war abroad who can’t turn it off when they come home, and the critical role of music in helping tell the real story of tens of thousands of severely wounded young men and women–body, heart, soul, and psyche–and the catastrophic consequences of this practice for America.

“Aha!” the alert reader will exclaim, “that’s six faves!” Technically, yes…but I never excluded a tie And that doesn’t include any favorite foreign flicks, animation, manga…so expect to see more Top Five Music lists coming up!

What are your top five film soundtracks? Send me a post, or a link to your list.

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Here’s Herbert von Karajan wafting down The Blue Danube Waltz.

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For instance, you could assign an octave in the middle range the instructions: place thumb tacks on the hammers of the black keys from middle C to C1. Then insert erasers among the white key strings from middle C to C1. Which reminds me of the cembalo we heard in Budapest.

ORGAN2/ASLSP As Slow as Possible is the longest, slowest composition ever. A special organ was built in the church of St. Burchardi in Halberstadt, Germany expressly to play this piece. The idea is that the piece will play continuously for the next 639 years (adjust for age of article) to commemorate the original organ in that church, which just so happened to be the very FIRST organ ever built, ever. So–the longest, slowest composition ever for the very first organ ever.

I think that is a dazzlingly cool idea. So then check out 4′ 33″

I played his Three Pieces for Two Flutes (1935) with a fellow flutist in college. An unexpectedly beautiful composition. I highly recommend it for students level 5-6 and up.

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King Wenceslas (Szent Vraclav) statue, Wenceslas Square, Prague, Czech Republic.
Photo by TGM.

Prazska Muzejni Noc

Web designers: Czech out this gorgeous Web site!

Anniversary of 5th Prague Museum Night, a collaboration among the National Museum, Prague Public Transport Company Inc., and Association of Museum and Galleries of the Czech Republic. 25 cultural institutions and 51 sites were involved. Happens on Thursday evenings. Admission and transportation are free, except for a free will donation to two national sites.

The evening also includes concerts, recitals, movies, theatre, and dance performances, public readings, lectures, and guided tours.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if every city in America did that? Can you imagine the upsurge in learning in our schools? The rise in the quality of our national intellect? When every child has access to quality instruments, instruction, music, investment of time and puts all that body of knowledge into creating more music? We would be better listeners. We would appreciate how music is inextricable from the human experience. That music sculpts vibrations into rainbows of sound.

It’s not political, it’s cultural. Nurture music and the arts wherever you are.

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Castle Hill, Budapest, Hungary. The largest spire is the Basilica of St. Mattias, one of the venues where AVAE was privileged to perform.

A bit of background

The Danube River separates Buda (west, Castle Hill) and Pest (east, government and commerce). Built in the first century B.C. by Celts, the Romans occupied the town as the eastern border of the Roman Empire. In the fifth century, Goths and other peoples on the run from the Huns overran the Roman defenses. These in turn were routed by Ostragoths and Huns. The name Attila is still popular today.

Over the following centuries, Buda and Pest were dominated by various populations, emerging as an important trade center between Europe and Constantinople in the 15th and 16th century. Cultural growth was particularly active during the reign of King Matthias, with the second Hungarian university established in 1395, and the first book was printed in 1473.

Composers and music

By the 19th century, Budapest emerged as a major intellectual center, and a rich environment for the simultaneous development of musical performance, composition, and pedagogy. Hungary produced Ferenc (Franz) Lizst, composer, wicked-good pianist, and founder of the (Hungarian) Academy of Music. That in turn fostered the famous Zoltan Kodaly (Ko-die) method, a brand-new musical pedagogy, culminating in the internationally-known Kodaly Institute.

Then you have Bela Bartok, musicologist, educator, and composer extraordinaire, teaching at the Academy at the same time as Gustav Mahler, one of the orchestral gods.

Coming up next…more about Hungary, Slovenia

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Actually, I was thinking of Bo Diddley, saying a fond farewell to an icon of my pre-teen and teen years. His music always made me get up and dance.

Somehow that led me to Rubenstein, and my night at the concert. He did a Beethoven concerto, several fiery Latin composers, one of my faves, Heitor Villa-Lobos, and a set of solo pieces as well.

The music alone was overwhelming, add to that a posh venue, Cattleman’s dinner pre-concert, and you’d think that was heaven on earth. As wonderful as it was, what stands out most, in that full to the brim evening, was the unfolding drama of a woman who sat several rows down and to our left. We were in the balcony, of course, and so I had an excellent view of this woman reading scores while he played.

She was obviously knowledgeable about music, and I found myself watching her as actively as I was Rubenstein. She was one with the music–her aura was fed by it, and I marveled at her total involvement. This is known as flow.

As the concert went on, the woman became so entranced with the sound, she unconsciously ceased to follow the score, clasped it to her breast, and positively glowed. This was my first encounter with the metaphysics of music–that flow. This woman, having no idea I was watching her, totally blissed out. Pretty heavy for a modest sixteen year-old preacher’s daughter.

I believe Rubenstein is credited with the axiom, “If I don’t practice for one day, I notice it. If I don’t practice for two days, my wife notices. If I don’t practice for three days, my audience notices.” Music is pretty cool, whether you’re making it or engaging by listening.

Image details: Heitor Villa-Lobos served by picapp.com

Image details: Rubinstein’s Award served by picapp.com

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Here is a fascinating Web site that gives a run-down on Slovenian church music during the Reformation and subsequently a run-in with the Communist regime.

Composers of that time made their living as many do today–writing secular pieces, forming secular instrumental and vocal groups, and teaching in addition to the court duties to produce masses for the cathedrals in Prague, Vienna, those nice Alpen capitols. His students learned and performed his pieces, in a workshop environment similar to universities today.

Here is a quaintly phrased bio of the Slovenian rock band Siddhartha.

More photos from The Good Photographer, er, Musician.

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