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The sound of printmaking

The sound of printmaking

by | Apr 19, 2013 | , ,

I recently scored a feature-length documentary on post World War II printmaking in the American Midwest. Somehow, in my mind, Midwest printmaking meant clarinet. And that meant I got the pleasure of recording the principal clarinetist from the Kennedy Center’s opera orchestra, David Jones. What a delight it was working with such a talented multi-instrumentalist. We used clarinet, flute, tenor sax, and bass clarinet in the studio, and David managed to give me every tone color I needed. I could have dug through every synth patch I have to score this and never come up with what that David was able to give me in one beautiful recording session. The film, Midwest Matrix, directed by Susan Goldman, was screened last month in Milwaukee.

Pro or Contra Bassoon?

by | Apr 12, 2013 | ,

If you’re a composer, there is a moment when you are laying out ideas for the first movement of an orchestral piece that has serious consequences for all the following movements. You must decide whether you want to use a contrabassoon. Or a bass clarinet. Or a piano. Decisions like this can affect who will eventually play, or even look at, your piece.

I’m told there is nothing more infuriating to a conductor than finding out that the composer has written for contrabassoon for only one movement–and that the part is crucial to the overall feeling of the score. This means that the other movements will feature a fully paid contra player sitting on his hands in the woodwind section. For most of the orchestras that play my work, this is a couple hundred bucks that could be used for something else. I have learned my lesson: I don’t include a supplementary instrument in a piece unless I am going to use it throughout.

As for piano, I have found that most rehearsal halls for community orchestras do not have pianos, and that many concert halls have horrible pianos. Including piano in your score–no matter how Copland-y you are feeling–could preclude having the piece chosen for a performance. You are generally better off writing for marimba or harp.

I resisted using Sibelius notation software at first. I was very happy with my Judy Green score paper and Judy Green pencils. But the software has some features that help me keep music directors happy. Chief among them is the program’s strong preference for consistent orchestrations in a piece. If you try adding instruments midway through, you are asking for a world of trouble. Ten years of Sibelius–and even longer working with the conductors of academic, regional, and community orchestras–has made me a better, more consistent, and more user-friendly composer.

Dot Dot Dot final mixes done!

by | Apr 5, 2013 | ,

Starting an album is easy. Finishing it is hard. After some really fun and completely exhausting work, we’re done recording and mixing the next Chaise Lounge CD. The album, Dot Dot Dot, features some of our most-requested songs, including “The Coolest Car,” which has already been played on NPR’s Car Talk, and “My Losing Streak,” a show-stopping instrumental featuring our sax player, Gary Gregg. Along with nine of my originals, the CD includes covers such as Leonard Bernstein’s “Cool” and a terrifyingly fast version of Jerome Kern’s “Old Man River.” The album should be making its way onto record store shelves by mid-May. Oh wait…there aren’t any more record stores. But you’ll be able to find the CD at chaiseloungenation.com.

The Truth About Gigs

by | Feb 25, 2013 | ,

Gia Mora and I just played a couple of gigs in LA. She has a cabaret show called “Einstein’s Girl.” It combines some spectacular singing (hers), some unexpected song selections (e.g., “She Blinded Me with Science”) and Gia’s passion for astrophysics. It is an amazing piece of whatever it is…performance art, cabaret, stand-up science? But the two shows illustrated the sometimes-stark contrast between how a gig plays on Facebook and in your mind, versus how it plays out in real life.

The first gig was at The House of Blues. It is an amazing venue on Sunset Boulevard. It is the house that Dan Akroyd built out of vodka, voodoo, Persian rugs and outsider art. I loved posting our performance there on Facebook. In my mind, this couldn’t have been any cooler. But the reality of the gig was something else again. It started with a rock-and-roll sound guy who did not get what we were doing at all. There was a smallish crowd of hipsters—a bobbing swarm of hats and tattoos—who were largely uninterested in what we were doing. It hit me just fifteen minutes too late that this was not a listening room at all. This was a club with an entirely different agenda from mine. We played our set, and when it was over we felt worse about music than when we started. But—and this is a crucial “but”—it was great to say that we played the House of Blues.

Two days later we played a little club called The Gardenia. It is on Santa Monica Boulevard between La Brea and Sycamore. It has been there for thirty years. And it must look exactly the same as when it was first built: a bland “L” shaped room with seating for 80, max. There is a piano and a few mics and two ancient Ramsa PA speakers. The only thing that gave me a clue of what was to come was the lighting: a real theatrical spotlight in the back, theater lighting on the ceiling, and the LED standlights on the piano.

Our sound check was at 3 pm for a 9 pm show. The lighting tech and sound tech were the same person, Shauna. There was so much right, so soon. Shauna was a total pro. She knows her room and understands sound and lighting. The sound check involved mostly lighting cues. I loved this. The “sound” part of the sound check only took five minutes because Shauna determined that the piano was going to be loud enough without any amplification. How many sound techs will turn a mic off? Very few. She instinctively knew two things right away:  One,  that the balance would be OK and two, that the natural sound of the piano would be better than the amplified sound of the piano. Beautiful. The “lighting” part of the sound check gave Gia and me a chance to go over the beginnings and ends of all our songs while Shauna made notes about lighting changes, gel choices, blackouts, etc. I can’t stress enough how important effective lighting is in any presentation. Any theater person knows this. But so few music clubs seem to understand it.

The show later that night was terrific. Gia was totally on. I think I can say that I played really well. The club was completely full of appreciative fans who love Gia and love this style of music. It was a grand night. But when I talk about last week’s trip to LA, I will always start it with this: “I was in LA to play at The House of Blues…” It just sounds so good.

Notes from the Vamoose Bus

by | Jan 17, 2013 | ,

One of the best things about living in Washington DC is New York. If you have the great foresight to live anywhere in the BosWash corridor, you get New York as part of the deal. It is just a bus ride away. Or a train ride; or a relatively short auto trip. I feel lucky in that I can walk to the Vamoose bus stop and four hours later get off at Madison Square Garden. There are parts of the day when it would take me that long to drive to Alexandria.
I went up to NYC on the Vamoose bus yesterday. My daughter and I had dinner in the East Village at Supper (excellent food! N.B. cash only). Then we walked down to the corner of 2nd St. and Avenue C to The Stone, a club started by composer/arranger/producer/player John Zorn. They don’t advertise. They don’t serve food. They don’t serve drinks. It is all about the music. We saw an avant-garde string quartet called the JACK Quartet with composer Derek Bermel joining them on clarinet. First, they played a challenging piece of Bermel’s: challenging to play and even more challenging to listen to. “Adventurous” doesn’t even come close. And then they played a Brahms quintet. I hate Brahms, so musically that was something of a bust for me. But being in the coolest club in all of New York trumped anything musical. The place only held about 50 people, of whom 50 knew who the JACK Quartet was, and 48 knew who Derek Bermel was. There was a sense of exclusivity to the concert. We were suddenly part of “something”—something current and viable and exciting. I felt smarter for just being there. There is a lot of great music being made in DC right now, too, but I love having New York at the end of my neighborhood.

My Neighbors and Music

by | Dec 20, 2012 | ,

I live in a 1940’s vintage neighborhood. The lots are small and the houses are close to each other. We have zoning coded so antiquated that one is allowed to build to within 7 feet of one’s property line. There are zero covenants on house color, styles, roof tiles… nothing. It is a wonderful neighborhood.
My neighbors are from all different strata of life. One lady at the end of the street has been here since her house was built in 1942.
I have now been here so long that I am well known in the area. I am the music guy. I think what that means to most of my neighbors is that I am the guy who is always home during the day. If you need your battery jumped- I am home. If you need help moving stuff during the day- I am at home. I have a fairly steady stream of neighbor kids who show up at my door with a guitar that needs a string or a violin that needs tuning. The day before yesterday Talia K. showed up on my porch with her trumpet and played Hot Crossed Buns. She is 8.
Once a year I have a huge Christmas party. I think something like 250 people come. I hire a band. This year it was a Trad/dixieland group of upright bass,drums,banjo/guitar, trumpet,soprano sax and trombone. When they are not playing I play piano and everyone sings Christmas Carols. If I do say so myself it is a hella party. One of the great parts of this party is the reaction of my ( non-pro) neighbors to this music making. This might be the only time each year that they see and hear this level of excellence at close quarters. The musicians that show up are not as impressed. Mostly they are waiting for a chance to sit-in. It is the neighbors’ wide-eyed stares that make me so happy to put this party on. I think they all feel like they stepped into a Bing Crosby movie. To see great music being made with so much joy, and seemingly, with such off-hand effort. There is no printed music in sight. This totally bewilders the neighbors who may have studied piano in the past or played clarinet in high school band. This is a party that takes dancing and singing and generally merry-making seriously. That is,of course, what the party is all about. But what I love to see is that look of astonishment on the face of someone who thought you only got to see and hear music like this for fifty-five dollars at Wolf Trap. The ease of it all, the fun of it all, the free of it all, the excellence of it all is reflected in their eyes and their gushing comments. ” How did you FIND these guys?” is a regular comment. My answer is determinedly casual. ” Oh, these are just a bunch of guys I work with”. They are so much more than that. They are all guys who have devoted their lives to this craft. They all bring thirty years of diligent practice to this gig- just to make it look easy. It is really grand to be the guy that brings this, with a lot of beer and chili, to the neighborhood.

Wednesday at Strathmore with the young Artists in Residence

by | Nov 26, 2012 | ,

Looking forward to playing at the Mansion at Strathmore with Chaise Lounge–natch–and Owen Danoff and Deborah Bond on Wednesday night Nov.28th. Part of the deal with being a mentor in the AIR (Artists in Residence ) program is to premier a new song.  The new song is called  “I Just Want All of My Stuff.”  Another sad, sad tale of love gone wrong. And certain vigilante actions taken afterwards. 

Just to follow up

by | Nov 19, 2012 | , ,

The CCS concert was a success.  Thank you for all your attention to detail and your enthusiasm for music.

Velocipede

by | Nov 16, 2012 | , , ,

I went to a Capital City Symphony rehearsal last night. They are going to premier a piece of mine on Sunday called Velocipede.  The atmosphere in an orchestral rehearsal is a wonderful thing.   there is a real seriousness of purpose.  Everyone there does this purely for the love of it.  It is a community orchestra But there is nothing casual or cavalier about the attitude they bring to playing music.  It is all business.  Vicky Gau, the conductor,  is a terrific rehearse-er.  She has got great ears for finding the troublesome bottlenecks in a passage and coming up with just the right fingering or phrasing that will help.   Looking forward to hearing the finished product on Sunday. ( 2:30PM  and 4:30PM at the Atlas Theater, 1333 H St NE, Weashington DC )

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