Fraternal Miniaturists Architects

I just read a J. Drillon article comparing two skills (or can I say, “talents”, “assets”?) of Beethoven and Schubert.

Schubert is described as a fantastic composer of melodies. A melody for him is a perfect little thing, like a poem verse, closed in a shell.

But unlike Beethoven, who will from a melody build fabulous architectures, Schubert will wear himself out. It’s not where his talent is.

As he needs to develop, he will repeat, vary, remodel, dwell on.

Voilà, here’s my structure :

If you’re good in little forms, or fast things, what will  you do with bigger things?

And should even you begin? And if you have to, what are the paths in front of you?

If you’re a poet, what do you do with a novel to write? (Faulkner is a perfect example of a success in this passage). If you’re a photographer, what do you do with a movie? (Puzzle of a Downfall Child, from Jerry Schatzberg, is a splendid movie). Waging war, how can a good strategist become a good tactician?

What I’m interested in is this : if you’re a master of little forms, what should you develop to be good in bigger forms?

There’s a whole conversation to lead with that : Use your weaknesses? Dare more? Be casual? Ask for help? Avant-garde? Stop? Cheat?

What about Schubert, this “genius of exquisite miniatures”? For his symphonies, he makes some long with some short, and it is… imperfection! And it moves us : it makes his art… fraternal. He’s like us. It’s hard, but he makes it. Voilà.

Thanks for reading!

 

 

Mozart : “Dissonance? #holdmybeer”

Art, Music, Painting, do what you want with these, but there’s something you can watch, a dial : Art is a progress. 

One core of Art is : “What’s new here?”.

Thus, one path in music history – but not only – lead towards dissonance… Listen to Bach, then to Webern… Today it’s more complex, I agree…

One day I asked a friend : “How come a guy like Mozart never thought of wringing harmonies?”.

“Well, he DID!”, he answered.

The beginning of the Dissonance Quartet is a total shock when you discover it. It’s from the 18th Century and it sounds like Shostakovich! At least : first half of XXth Century.

I was like : “Wait what?”.

We could talk about this pattern for a few hours, right? Each important piece of Art swallows influences and digests them and builds something new, never seen, never heard. Think Picasso. Think Stravinsky!

But here it’s like a casual slapping in your face. Like an open window into 150 years in the future… with no consequence.

Now, in YOUR field, what is this? Are you skilled enough to guess?

MMmhhh. Maybe Leornardo Da Vinci tried some Pollock dripping? Who knows?

Have a great day!

 

 

 

 

Inner Party – The “Second Pleasure” of the music-lover

Everybody knows the First Pleasure of the classical music lover. You like this or not, that’s all. Pleasure of the music, from the music!

If your curiosity is intact, you will read about the composer and its time.

It’s the beginning of the Second Pleasure. When you explore different versions of the piece, you read about this, you compare, you wonder.

Thanks to YouTube you can pre-explore. Listen Fêtes (festivivities) from Debussy. It’s from Nocturnes. Imagine there’s a party somewhere but you go outside is the night :

By Boulez :

 

Bernstein goes much faster. Electric festivities !

 

 

 

If, on both examples, you go to the middle of the piece, the party is now far. The lovers are in the night, and another energy unfolds : the pleasure of being alive and enthralled under the stars. Like an inner party, an elation. Then…

Oh, there’s a version with two pianos !

 

Pleasure is to talk about this with a another hunter. Third pleasure?

Tool : Where could you apply that? How could you enlarge your researches? Change of nature? Change of subtleties?

Thanks for reading!

(for the pleasure of being just beside a party, you could read Sipping Moods)

Instagram : drpoopdog

Keep a part for later – Masterpieces from Masters

If you’re an explorer, you sometimes discover an artist you… adore.

It’s so good that you can’t resist : here you are exploring the whole chest, pigging out the whole thing. We are all lost souls, craving for…

But sometimes you climb “one more degree”. It’s so good that you decide something.

Keep a part for later. More in reserve. Some gas left in the tank.

This is what I did with a few masters : Puccini, Chekhov, Faulkner, Borges, Jünger. Who are yours?

I know Manon and La Bohème by heart, and pretty well some of other Puccini’s operas, like Tosca or Butterfly, and one third of Trittico. Each time I listen to a part of Turandot I’m floored… but I keep it for later!

Chekhov wrote hundreds of short stories. I have shelves of that guy! But I never read “everything”. It’s the same for Jünger or Borges, or Faulkner.

• Keep the pleasure to discover something new from a Master you love.
• One day it’s maybe to late : you’re dead. Or you’re not interested any more.
• You sometimes don’t remember if you read this or that. Even better, right?
• There’s a middle choice : listen or read once, and then wait for years.
• Years after, you read or listen… another way.
• Choose an infinite area. Restaurants in Paris for example. Hmmm?

Thanks for reading!

 

 

Instagram : hallieartwork

The Ravel’s Bolero Syndrome : when you know someone from ONE thing only

Some names are well known for only ONE work, one event, one place.

Dorothea Lange is well known for “this” picture only. Maurice Ravel is linked for ever to his Bolero. The city of Agra with the Taj Mahal. The Korgis have a great hit : “Everybody’s Got to Learn Sometime”. Where’s the rest?

I call it The Ravel Syndrome. The structure is : “Something is known for ONE thing and the rest is globally ignored”. It’s not necessarily one work, it can be one domain : for example, Chekhov is very well know for his theater, and nobody knows his short stories.

This dial should lead us to take the wheel, think, and explore. Lange probably took other good pictures, Ravel composed a great Daphnis & Chloe and his concertos for piano are fantastic, Agra is full of great other places to visit. The Korgis, well, I don’t knowww (there are pages of lists of “One Hit Singers” on the web)…

There are two lessons to get from this :

• This flaw could be called “Hit Laziness”. Let’s enter the house and discover the other rooms, why not try to see what the artist has behind his “hit”. Maybe treasures?
• “Someone is known for ONE thing and the rest is globally ignored” can be very cruel. I think of Monica Lewinsky, which is probably a much more interesting person than this label you just put on her, in your mind. Hmmm?

 

Thanks for reading!

 

 

 

Schmaltzy Frontier : quiet #piano music from Satie to Eno

Cucul la praline is a very common French “idiom” meaning schmaltzy, ludicrously & overly sentimental. You can put this “ass-ass the pralin” on a person in love or on a picture, or… some music.

Quiet Piano Music draws a line in brains. Before the line, you find it peaceful and great, and after it, it’s… schmaltzy!

Of course this line is personal. I love Erik Satie’s Gymnopedies (I chose voluntarily a neutral clip : if you search YouTube, you’ll find plenty of “beautiful” things with flowers and flying birds). On this side of the line, here are the Preludes from Debussy.

OK, let’s get closer to the line. Eno/Budd’s The Pearl is a perfect balance. Satiesque gorgeous piano and ambient sounds. Try Goldmund, or the much more “melodic” Tim Story, which is, for me, the “line”. I won’t go further. No thanks. Cucul la praline.

Funny game : try the other way. Go quiet-but-more-complex (Berg? Boulez?). Nope? Well, see, there’s another frontier.

Tools/Dials/Levers :

You advertise, you compose, you take photos? Do you think about the Schmaltsy Frontier?

Who will watch your work? Where is the audience? Pleased but comfortable? Disgusted by complexity OR by “two much sugar”?

Where is the risk to lose the audience? What’s the worst?

Is there a way to add “complex nuggets” or “ridiculous nuggets” in a comfortable piece of Art?

Where is sarcasm and how will you play with it? What line would you prefer to touch?

Why is something cucul la praline? Too simple? What could be surprising?

 

Brian Eno & Steve Reich : Music to listen to while writing

When you write, you have to focus.

If you are one of these young people, you have to listen to the music you love, you put TV on, you check your phone and your Facebook Instagram Twitter whatever accounts, you open the window to hear the cars passing by and you Skype your best friend while you work on your exams. Perfect multitask.

I do not own this kind of brain. I really have to focus!

If you write, sometimes you need music, but music is too much. Music is CALLING you. It goes :

“Hey! Listen! I’m interesting! There’s a change here! Listen to meee!”

But no music and closed window, it’s silence. Sometimes, it’s too much. It’s a no.

I thought about this a lot. When I have to work, I ban singers, because, errr, they sing. Pfff. They talk to you, right? They talk about problems, mainly. OK : no singers.

I pick up instrumental musics for the mood. Röyksopp or any electro dancing music are great. Classical is a whole kingdom : I choose Brahms if I want powerful brown thick thinking, Prokofiev if I want triangles and fast drive, or Debussy if I wanna be impressionismistonic. You can push to Boulez (complex rotating-moving architectures) or Hindemith or Chopin for other “moods”.

• Between watching TV and watching nothing, you can evolve around a painting.
• Between listening to music and silence, you can write on Eno or Reich.

Both are enough “neutral” to let you work. Both are enough “full” to feed you.

Eno’s Thursday afternoon is a one hour piece. It’s not really music (and it NOT new age music), it’s more like a PLACE. Listen at a low level. Layers of sounds passing by. Quiet like a cloister, a convent. It’s a bit aquatic, slowly evolving like if you were watching clouds. You have a place to think, to work. You will notice it’s a set of loops. Some sounds come back. You’re in a fresh air coil…

Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians is a one hour piece. It’s a strong fast weaving of notes. They call it “repetitive music” because of the pulses, but it changes constantly. It’s also a “decor” for you to work, but more intense, with more DRIVE. Energy. The 1978 ECM recording is the best. It’s more like you were watching a land from a moving train.

Put them in “loop”. Eno has been in my place, sometimes, a whole day. It’s like a painting. Reich makes you wait, pushes your brain to fast mode. It’s more clever than that. Each piece makes you move. It triggers something.

Find your own tools (Phil Glass? JS Bach? The Field?).

Thanks for reading !

 

 

Jungle Syndrome of Mahler, Proust, Marx

I call “Jungle Syndrome” the feeling you have in front of the big-size-map of some masterpieces (or so-called), or artworks. I chose three examples : Mahler, Proust, and Marx. You can add anything you want : French Revolution, American Civil War, Napoleon, Italian Renaissance, ou alors tout Picasso.

Something, in these, is “too much”. Trop complexe, too rich, too interesting, too big. You pick a leaf, then you have a tree, a forest, a universe. Gasp !

I tried many times to explore Mahler‘s music. The last time I’ve been very persistent, reading about him and his life, watching concerts, listening to different versions of the symphonies. And hooo : it’s too big for me, too complex. 9 long symphonies…

Proust is the same. Thousands of RICH pages. Each page contains style ideas, it’s gorgeous, interesting, full of ideas and subtilities. And it’s lonnnng.

It becomes, each time, a strange weave between boredom and fascination (oui, c’est possible !), as if you could really guess that there are treasures and marvels to discover if you insisted. Efforts necessary, this time ? Yes.

Each time, I let it go. I did !

I did not try Marx, and just a little Picasso. These can keep you busy for YEARS !

You can give up. You will. But you can keep exploring, as well. Just to see what happens. Persistence.

This month I was trying to explain Proust to a friend. So I chose a random page and I began to read. The style was gorgeous, and the idea expressed in this single page let us floored in awe. It sparkled in the conversation. It triggered a urging desire to go on with Proust.

A few months ago I listened to Mahler a lot. This was exhausting for my ears, even if they are trained to listen to classical music. But I insisted, because I was amazed by the beauty of some moments. I was like in front of a complex architecture, trying to find a door.

I found one, then another one, then a movement, then… I kept finding gold nuggets.

Tools : In somes cases, even if it seems complicated, “too much” something, you feel it’s worth it, insist, be persistent. There’s gold, tons of gold : you maybe have to keep digging and find your own doors, find your gold.

Enregistrer

The Casualness Shades of Orchestras

I’m reading a book about orchestras. I liked the pages explaining how different do great orchestras really sound from one another, that’s interesting.

Try this article : World Greatest Orchestras

Cultural differences made me smile. Some American or German musicians hired by French orchestras were disturbed by our… frenchness. Instrumentalists are chatting before rehearsals, par exemple, ohlalaaaaa…

It’s a matter of shades, though. Italian instrumentalists think we are much more rigorous… Makes sense, no ?

In an American orchestra, everybody is on time, all the musicians did their homework, and nobody talks. Not a word. Riccardo Muti, coming from… Italy, was a bit surprised by this American “engine ready” effectiveness and once said to the orchestra : “You know, you can talk !”.

The author tries to be culturally fair. American or German (among others) orchestras are fast and effective, and French orchestras need more rehearsals to prepare a symphony, for example.

He says that the result is great, clean, and pretty much always the same in the United States. They do the job ! In France, orchestras are less like a perfect car and more like a living surprising entity. They do the job too, and sometimes it’s becoming amazing !

Leonard Bernstein always loves French orchestras for this reason : they follow his craziness if he tries something unusual. And… the author says than French instrumentalists are very quiet and attentive when the chief in Giulini or Haitink. Errrr…

Yes, I can link this arcticle to this other one, about following damn rules

So let’s say we can, but we don’t !

After all, the Eiffel Tower has no function, other than a symbol. The Eiffel Tower is uneffective.

I think that in France we just like to do things slightly improperly. Yesss we can cross the road out of the zebras, if there’s no car around. We really do that ! Ohlalala…

Lever : This lever is called “Obey” and has two ways. If something’s boring in your project, because it’s clean and right on the road, pull it here. Try something French. Add wine too.

Josef Krips, a great conductor, once said something like “With half more discipline, the French orchestra would become the best of the world”. Maybe you need half more discipline, then. Pull the lever there. Thank you America !

Day off with #orchestra #pluriel

What does Manon Lescaut want?

Manon Lescaut is an Italian opera composed by G. Puccini in the 1890s, from a French novel named “L’Histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut“.

Act 1 : Des Grieux is a melancholic student, outside, with friends, in France. A coach arrives, bringing Manon, a young woman on her way to convent (forced by her father), and Géronte, an old man who wants to abduct Manon and live with her in Paris. Des Grieux understands what’s happening, falls in love, and Manon and him escape in Géronte’s coach. Voilà !

Act 2 : Curiously, Manon has already left des Grieux and is living a relatively luxurious life with the old Géronte. Etc… Yes, etc !

There’s a huge, gap, an ellipsis, between Act 1 and 2 : what happened to the young couple ? Why did Manon choose Géronte, quitting her young lover ? Money ? Bore ? Stupidity ?

Pappano on Manon’s Music

As a Puccini lover, I watched many versions of this opera. And I found out something, a question appeared :

What does Manon Lescaut want?

So I began to explore books and the web to find out. Kiri Te Kanawa (with a marvellous Placido Domingo as Des Grieux) is a splendid, crystal innocent Manon. She floats onto what life brings to her, like a little cork on the sea. Elsewhere, Astrid Weber plays an upstart woman, mocking secretly and using Des Grieux as a purpose to escape her fate.

These are two very interesting ways to interpret the character. Because you will fill the blank (ellipsis) in VERY different ways !

From this to that, I saw many ways to put Manon to life. Is she a punk ? A feminist ? An idiot ? Does she choose anything ? What do you think ?

Manon and Des Grieux in Act II

Manon is a blurry character. We often don’t understand her. Her behavior is complex, living, changing all the time : she is a weathercock !

In Act I, she’s a sad, frightened country girl sent off to a convent. In Act II, she’s the consort of a wealthy old man, sarcastic and bored. This activity doesn’t address Act III, where she’s in prison for allegedly stealing from that old man, but Act IV finds her experiencing the consequences: wandering helpless, full of regrets, in a vast American desert.

Yes that’s sad ! Yes She’ll die ! Who was Manon Lescaut ?

Libretto in english

 

Tool : Ah c’est tellement passionnant when you don’t have all the keys. When a single glance can change all the story ! Who’s evil ? You don’t know. What if in your work you didn’t give “all the keys” to the audience ? Chop one or two, just to see…

 

Tool : One of the pleasure of Classical Music is to compare versions. You can have days and days of pleasure.

Dial : Another article is needed : “In Love with a Project”. Soon.

 

 

 

“Without Music Life would be a Mistake” ? Nope…

“Without Music Life would be a Mistake”

You can find this quote from Nietzsche on all kinds of tee-shirts.

In fact, you can replace “Music” with some other pleasant words, like “Wine”, or “Love”, or “Philosophy”, “Fashion”, who cares ? Is it an order, some kind of pressure ?

Of course, without music life would not be a mistake AT ALL.

The Persuaders

If you suddenly take seriously how music is important to people, you’ll be SO surprised that you will be floored. I use this “floored” expression because I’m french and I LOVE it. Floored, you on the floor, voilà pour vous.

I asked about the opera, one day. One loves opera because of the magic of the place. Some because of the archetypal terrible stories. For some others, it’s the performance of the singers (ahhhh the “high notes” !). Some guys are in love with one voice only (Callas !). Some guys love only one composer (Wagner, or for me : Puccini). Many love opera and only opera. You can find fools who love to collect all versions of the same thing. Etc.

Elephant Woman

You should and you have to think about it when you want to SHARE a music. You give YouTube links to your lover and most all the time you’ll be surprised. She doesn’t care. What moves you does nothing to the others.

Personaly I love risky modulations (I love Mike Oldfield, John Barry, Progressive Rock and Royksopp, and Puccini, and Prokofiev for this reason). I love to analyse production (Floors of sound in Depeche Mode Violator, different veils in Brian Eno’s work). I love crescendos. I love when the magic is hidden in a mist (Royksopp, Blonde Redhead). I love David Sylvian’s voice. OK I stop here. What about YOU ?

Brilliant Trees

Some like an era (the sixties !), a style (new wave !), an energy (dance !), an attitude (punk !), a flow (rap !), productors (Trevor Horn ?), a sound, a label (4AD), a social field (gothic culture), a movement (house), a nostalgy (“I listened to The Police when she kissed me !”), the singer (Arctic Monkeys oh he’s so cute)…

Tools :

Oh, just this : It’s always more complicated.

Do not think that you have a human typology in mind. You’re wrong.

(and fuck Nietzsche on this quote)

https://youtu.be/cFig-OiIwDo

Overwhelmed While Trying No To…

Directing The Rite of String (and performing it, je suppose) is a mess.

ONE : it’s complicated.

TWO : it’s a terrible fantastic TRANCE, at times.

There’s a danger here, for the directors. They must direct ! Some of them finish it like devastated with pleasure. Some others try to control themselves : the audience should be extatic, not the Chef d’Orchestre ! Enfin !

The Fifth Movement of the Symphony N°2 “Resurrection” (I’ve read that it was “the most monumental musical work written up to that point“), by Gustav Mahler, is ending by a glorious use of choir.

I took this example because I watched a DVD of this Symphony, directed by Pierre Boulez, and at the end of the end (say, the 4 last minutes), the choir is building something really too much, and you feel the shivering chill of pleasure all along your delighted skin (hell, I’m french, and I do not know really how to say it).

At this moment, I saw this lady crying (cf picture) in the choir – why, maybe because of the music, but who knows ? – and just after the end, while the audience was applausing like crazy, I saw Boulez (did I imagine it ?) completely overwhelmed by emotion.

Dial : Is holding the flood possible/useful ? What about painters ? What about the best DJs ? Do they dance like fools, or do they focus on the perfection they want to bring to the dancers around him ?

Tool : If you create, try to check your stuff in the next morning. It could hurt. Good to you. Creating pleasure, it’s some work, Chief !

Let’s ask to a French poet :

It is impossible for a poet not to contain within himself a critic. Therefore the reader will not be surprised that I consider the poet as the best of all critics.

Charles Baudelaire

 

The Cauldron Method (or How to Be Casual with Masterpieces)

OK I’m french. My english is a frenglish, it’s rusty and wobbly, et voilà. Try me, though. I’ll do my best. I promise. If sometimes it’s too bad, just laugh at me or roll your eyes.

In front of impressive masterpieces you can find yourself very SHY. It happened to me a few years ago with La Recherche, by Proust : In Search of Lost Time, a pack of seven big books, you know, MMMasterpiece of Masterpieces, blabla. I bought it and never dared to begin ! How to read this ? With what kind of solemnity ? Terrifying ! (I’d add : poor you, if you have to read this in English and deal with the choice of translation).

You may also have this feeling in front of a domain you know rich, but you don’t know a penny about it. I had to handle this when I decided to open the door of the Opera territory. From where to begin ? Which composer ? Mozart ? Wagner ? Who ?

Shy as a little chicken in its shell, I began to read books about Proust. In one of them the author was angry at me. Really ! He was saying something like I was silly to be solemn about La Recherche, advising me to shup up and read what I want, in the order I want, and to let go “annoying pages” (!). It was as if a good father was talking to me, so I obeyed, and it was perfect.

After trying a little Verdi (boriiiing) I searched for the “next Italian composer”, found Puccini, and I… didn’t know what to do. Each opera was very long ! And there were many…

I remembered Proust and I tried not to worry too much : How to choose a first opera to listen to ? Director ? I began to wander randomly on YouTube and I listened to things with  little “I don’t care” ears. Of course, it worked.

I remember it in the most crystallest clearest way : Manon Lescaut was singing somewhere in my headphones as I was writing an email. The music then began to stop me. One time. Two times. Three. I had to really stop writing, like “Heyyyyy ??!”. Le plaisir was slipcrawling into my brain.

I got it ! The wire. I pulled it, and now I love Manon Lescaut, and Il Trittico, and La Bohème, etc.

Tools :

The Cauldron Method means two things :

1/ Don’t care that much about Masterpieces (with big M capital). You won’t hurt them ! These are not Cathedrals of Culture. Let go. Breathe. Find your own entrance. A lateral one. Then the kingdoms of pleasure are yours.

2/ Loosen your belt. And your tie. Be casual. The Masterpiece is probably a real one. IT WILL CATCH YOU ANYWAY.

 

The Boulez Wall (and how to Jump over it)

Pierre Boulez just died, he was a french conductor of importance and a composer of… let’s say avant-garde music. OK : “He does the crazy music”.

Listen to his …explosante-fixe…  – how do you feel about it ?

Some ideas are thumbtacked into our heads : it’s complicated, trop sophistiqué, ridiculous, random snap. Avant-garde. There’s a wall here, and you don’t want to go further.

But what if you dethumbtack, for once ? What happens when in music we go outside of our comfort zone ?

There’s a wall, let’s call it the Boulez Wall. Stay there, in front of the wall, stay on YouTube. Can you say why you don’t like this music ? Are you able to jump over the wall ? No ? OK, try : just listen to the music, the whole thing. Is that sooo terrible ?

You can try to understand many things in fact. Why you don’t like it, of course, but Also… how it is made (Google is your friend). You can explore also some good old questions sur l’Art : does it have to be pleasant or beautiful, or can it be interesting to analyse, too ? Is there a territory (comfort zone) you could spreadwiden ?

Wikipedia : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…explosante-fixe…

You maybe just have to know that the flutes are linked to an electronic device. Go to minute 29 and wait a few seconds, listen to the veils of sounds….

You will probably have to find your own way to appreciate the music (Close your eyes and see things ? Battle against your incompréhension ? Listen with dreaming distance ? Etc). Voilà !

Dial : Here, it’s about the Comfort Zone Dial. In art or life or work, you can just want to stay in this zone. Good. This is a territory, which has boundaries, les frontières. If you go outside of the zone, are you interested or afraid ? Curious, or bored ?

Lever : Choose something you “think” you don’t like. An author, a genre, une période de l’histoire, a movie director. Play. Insist. Or not.

Dethumbtack – I like this word !

#plastic

 

 

The Abba/Puccini syndrome

OK I’m french. My english is a frenglish, it’s rusty and wobbly, et voilà. Try me, though. I’ll do my best. I promise. If sometimes it’s too bad, just laugh at me or roll your eyes.

Wiki says : “A syndrome is a set of medical signs and symptoms that are correlated with each other and, often, with a specific disease.”

The Abba/Puccini syndrome is easy to explain. It’s a misunderstanding. Or a miscomprehension, allez savoir !

Abba was VERY popular, but a whole bunch of people hated them, rockers, indie critics, etc. Today most of the haters are… in a awe, they are embarrassed, they say “OMG they were, in fact, so good”. On every floor : Melodies. Hits. Production. Voices. Modernity. Melancholy. Arrangements.

Abba : I’m a Marionette

Puccini is the most played opera composer in the world. La Bohème, says Wikipedia, “remains one of the most frequently performed operas ever written”. Victim of its own popularity, he’s often seen as the composer of opera “hits”, like Nessun Dorma. And, at many moments, he’s obviously Italian (ce côté éperdu et ensoleillé du Nord de l’Italie). And this HIDES the modernity of his music. Puccini was admired by composers like Schoenberg, Ravel, and Stravinsky. Experiments and strange harmonic progressions colour the fabric of his music. You just have to listen what is “under”, or watch closely his funny way to drive harmony like a racing car :

Beginning of Manon Lescaut

Dial : Some artists can be victims of popularity, but this syndrome is double worse : success hides sophistication.

Kidults don’t like Bartok

OK I’m french. My english is a frenglish, it’s rusty and wobbly, et voilà. Try me, though. I’ll do my best. I promise. If sometimes it’s too bad, just laugh at me or roll your eyes.

I was born in 1966, so when Star Wars was on the screens, I was ten and my father took me by the hand to watch it. “Use the force, Luke”. J’ai adoré ! As a student, later, I spent nights fighting monsters in Quake or Doom. Harry Potter was not born, dommage. I read Stephen King instead…

Now I’m 49, I knowwww, there’s another Star Wars on the screens. I’ll watch it, I promise. But at the same time, well, I’m obsessed these days by the 4th Symphony of Gustav Mahler (the 2nd movement, In gemächliger Bewegung, which is a strange waltz, is fascinating because the violin sounds like some Dmitri Shostakovich), I read the biography of Goliarda Sapienza (I have to buy The Art of Joy – L’Art de la Joie !), and I watch, these days, an old documentary about the Metro Goldwyn Mayer.

I don’t play video games anymore. I didn’t buy any of the 1587 volumes of Walking Dead. Et puis Puccini m’a beaucoup occupé ces derniers temps, vous savez. I feel a bit alone, though. Bientôt ça va me faire culpabiliser. Genre le mec perché dans sa tour…

All men I meet daily seem to be what we call in France “adulescents“. You could call them adulteens ! They are thirty, forty years old, boring as possible, and their culture is nonexistent. They have teens’ culture instead. Blockbusters, but it’s hard to talk about Antonioni or Welles (“Old movies ? No”). Videogames, but don’t tell them about how funny Greta Garbo is in Ninotchka. Walking Dead comics, but no Bartok, too… disturbing. Or Bruckner, you know (ahhhh, le scherzo de la 9ème et ses pizzicati !). What about Vivian Maier ? Hmm ?

Why not, after all ? Super Mario (run and jump !) is probably more exciting than the Fourth of Mahler, and your Lego box of a Tie Fighter is just a little more expensive than this huge stupid Proust book et ses interminables phrases. Pfff…

“L’absence n’est-elle pas, pour qui aime, la plus certaine, la plus efficace, la plus vivace, la plus indestructible, la plus fidèle des présences ?”

Dial : What if they quit, at times, the surface of teeny things ? What if they stop… reacting on what the mainstream market prepare for them ? Que pourrait apporter une part d’autonomie, soudainement ? Who is the guy who can navigate from Tim Burton or Adèle, to Fanny & Alexander or… Bartok ? Mutant ?

La Culture à réaction, or why “Luxury is Insular”…

Local Gods

OK I’m french. My english is a frenglish, it’s rusty and wobbly, et voilà. Try me, though. I’ll do my best. I promise. If sometimes it’s too bad, just laugh at me or roll you eyes.

If we talk literature – et j’adore la littérature américaine – I think we all agree to say that we try to find the best writers… according to our tastes, opinions, style, and so on. Criterias.

Well, I love to read Faulkner and Jünger. I was amazed by Giono and Bouvier, and Chekhov makes me cry. Etc.

I think we live our tastes the same way. Painters. Architects. Photographs. Musicians,  whatever. I love Royksopp and Blonde Redhead because of their sound, and the way they compose music. I am fascinated by Puccini and Brahms. And I know exactly why.

I noticed that for sports, it’s different. In baseball, or football, people don’t like teams according to criterias, like style, energy or intelligence, or strategy.

People like the LOCAL team.

If you live in Boston, you support the Red Sox. I you live in Lille, like me, you support Le Losc, which is the local football team.

And I don’t understand why.

Lalo is a composer born in Lille. I should love his music, maybe, then ? Nope, sorry. I prefer Prokofiev.

I supppose that if I watched football I would watch closely the way they play, and THEN choose (criterias !) my best choice, the team I love, and I’ll buy tee-shirts, and flags to put here and there. Voilà !

Evidently, I suppose, in this case, that there’s another element. We like the local sports teams because… Efff… I don’t know. To make friends ? Nope. OK, I give up.

What about religion ?

There are many Gods to love, and many different specific religions. This is a bit complicated. But mainly, people act like in sports. They pray the local one. Why ? Wouldn’t it be more…

OK, I stop. Cheers !

Tout gain s’accompagne d’une perte – Every gain involves loss

OK I’m french. My english is a frenglish, it’s rusty and wobbly, et voilà. Try me, though. I’ll do my best. I promise. If sometimes it’s too bad, just laugh at me or roll you eyes.

Every gain involves loss ?

Ça pourrait être : Economy. Or some Levi Strauss. Or Beckett maybe ?

Peut-être…

When I was a student, I read something about Prokofiev. It was before the Internet, so I walked in the city (the mood of the sky ? See picture below – I remember it), entered the library, found a Deutsch Grammophon CD – Ozawa ! – borrowed it and I brought it home.

I read the booklet, and listened to the 2 CDs for two weeks. Many, many times. I explored it. It was precious ! Of course, as a 20 years old young man, I was moved by the Montagues And Capulets strange modulations zigzagguing music.

What about today ? Que se passe-t-il, aujourd’hui ?

A young female student hears that music in a movie, ohhhh ! She just writes “Prokofiev” in YouTube and get 408.000 results. If she’s smart, she tries the Russian way to write it : “Прокофьев“, to get… 42.100 more movies.

See me coming, don’t you ? The whole thing is just here. But… do we focus the same way, when the choice is that big ? No ! No no no, and no. Every gain involves loss. You just wander into the océan of the musique de Prokofiev, et voilà pour vous.

This “dial/lever/tool” text is not about scale of knowledge and the blissfull possibilité to get lost in it. I should write another one, un autre jour.

Dial/Lever/Tool : Observe what you have. Imagine you’re 30 years before. How would it be, then ? What if you put something aside ? What if you close some possibilities ? What if, as a photographer, you get back to film ? If every gain involves loss, what have you lost, then, with the vast “new thing” ? What will you do to recover that ? What if you had to keep 100 books in your shelves.

Is “Every loss involves gain” right ?

And what is the way to link this concept to the Wrong Way Up ?

The Extreme Upper Register of the Bassoon, story of the Wrong Tool

OK I’m french. My english is a frenglish, it’s rusty and wobbly, et voilà. Try me, though. I’ll do my best. I promise. If sometimes it’s too bad, just laugh at me or roll you eyes.

The opening solo of The Rite of Spring, by Igor Stravinsky, is played by a bassoon playing out of its normal register. It’s written “out of range”, and the result is a quite weird melody.

Musicians and analysts have been wondering about that for years. How to play this machin ? Le Sacre du Printemps, is about primitive rituels, it’s full of danses sacrificielles and other étranges processions. Soooo… I like the idée to play it weirdly, strangled or lost, lost in a forest, œuf corse…

By the way, héééé, you know the bassoon, this instrument : it’s like a tree, un arbre ! It’s long and made of wood, it’s a tree. A tree without the branches, d’accord.

OK that’s useless, but the idée of beginning that “pagan mass” (of mess) of broken dances by this “out of range” melody played by a bassoon is giving me the chills.

Well. OK. So what ?

Francesco Alberoni is an Italian, a professor of sociology. He wrote a très utile book named Falling in Love, which is completely… out of range for him. As a sociologue, he knows how to study collective movements, and certainement pas some couples and lovers. No no no no. Mr Alberoni, vous n’êtes pas du tout dans votre domaine de compétence…

He is NOT skilled to do that. Toutefois, et néanmoins, he DID it ! He used his sociologist tools to study two persons who fall in love, pfffff. Unappropriate ! Fool !

The result ? A classic, a best-seller. And it’s still a best-seller, more than 30 years after the first print. And it’s a great book by the way. Useful if you’re a broken heart – you’ll understand once you need it, trust me…

I let you elaborate the links between le livre Falling in Love and la musique de The Rite of Spring. It’s Tool Time now.

Tool :

Maybe sometimes, in life or at work, in a brainstorming session or in the middle of a battle, you just have to pick the wrong tool. Or pick the usual tool, and use it the wrong way. Use it nevertheless. Whatever ! Zut ! Maybe you’ll explore a new way to lead the victoire, after all ! Maybe you’ll be enough étrange to surprise everybody, allies and ennemis. You go boy and girl ! You go !

Reason & Pleasure : An Interesting Braid

Why, and how does music bring us pleasure?

I understood one day that human beings love music for very different reasons.  Melodies, the energy of dance, or the voice of a singer, nostalgia of an era or personal moment, to feel part of a community, for solos or the virtuosity of an instrumentalist, for a “sound”, or a production work.  Some people stay stuck their entire life on the Beatles, or Yes, or a single singer – Callas and everything around her. Why not?

Today I wonder, and I turn down the dial, or one of the cursors on musical pleasure.

1 – At the beginning of this dial you’ll find pure simple pleasure. You listen to Brahms‘ German Requiem and you feel bliss: “That is beautiful” bravo, and good for you.

2 – In the middle of the dial, reason and culture begin to become important.  You know where Brahms is in the historical timeline of classical music (say, between Mozart and Ravel), and you know a little of what’s happening in the music (here’s a soprano, there, woodwinds are playing a fascinating part with the horns…).

3 – At the end side of the dial, there is the connoisseur listener.  He is knowledgeable in the other works of Brahms, reads the sheet music, and understands what forces are in play (articulations of the different movements of the Requiem, what is said in the texts, how the instruments work together, etc…).

One could say this dial moves “from pleasure to reason,” but it’s not that simple. Why? Because the specialist, who is plunged into analysis and reason, is feeling pleasure as much as the amateurs.

More: I think that his pleasure is multiplied tenfold.

Tool: What is this strange way to mix reason and pleasure? Can we apply this to other territories (seduction, poetry, warfare ?), and how would this look?

What is this pleasure? Who knows the mechanisms of its birth?

How do we weave the braid made from different forces?