Painting by numbers...

Hello, TBSH'ers!

…referring to the Ravel orchestration of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition.  Am I missing something here, or is the among the easiest pieces in the literature, both to learn and to put together?  Have been working with a student here on it, and asked for a list of the difficulties in execution.  Assuming that you have a trumpet who can execute the opening and other solo passages, and either an intrepid tuba player or euphonium, what challenges are there?  And if you don't have both of those players, you shouldn't be bothering with the piece anyway.  So how many rehearsals does it really need, after all?  Goes right up there next to Mendelssohn 5.

For the little "Meno mosso" in Gnomus, I am doing dotted quarter = quarter.  Problem solved.  The tempo limitation is defined by the horns and trumpet when they play the initial motive towards the end of the movement.

OK, what else?  The strings in Limoges offer an ensemble challenge.  1st violin passagework is tricky, then some chromatic work in the low strings.  I've finally come to the realization that anytime there are 16th-note scales, either up or down, they will probably rush.  Beater, beware!

What about intonation/balance concerns?  Legitimate.  But no more so than in far more complicated scores.  When in doubt, less loud.  And Kiev requires patience and pacing, lest the whole thing get out of hand before the final iteration of the tune.  Still, not a problem.

West Side Story on the other hand…hmm.  Well, Kirstin warned me.  The Broadway version is really no less complicated than the Symphonic Dances (which is one of the trickiest pieces I know, especially to play, if not to conduct).  You need some virtuoso percussion playing, and there are serious licks in all the winds and brass.  Meanwhile, violins and cellos have some nasty exposed passagework; the violas should be thankful they have the night off.  Still, it is a heck of a fun score to conduct.  Performance tomorrow.

Beijing AQI today - 57.  Woo-hoo!  Going to go get my breathing on!
Best to all,
MG

MUCH NEWS FROM BEIJING!

Dear TBSH'ers,

Ni hao!  In Beijing these days, leading a semi-staged performance of West Side Story at the China National Opera House, and CNOH's annual opera galas at the National Centre for the Performing Arts on Christmas eve and Christmas day.  As I told my colleague and friend, Sara Danner-Dukic, I LOVE me some opera gala!.

I wish you all could see how BRAVE and intrepid these young singers are.  It is a huge step - often a huge DANCE step - for a Chinese soprano to prance about singing "I like to live in America!"or for a baritone from Hebei province to wrap his lips around Americanisms such as, "…when the spit hits the fan…" and the singular, obsolete word, "Headshrinker,"even in English virtually unpronounceable.  Kind of like "The Rural Juror" on 30 Rock.  Anyway, am having fun explaining to them what a "schmuck" is.  Maybe that's why they invited a Jersey Jew to conduct the show.

The performance on the 20th is in the peculiar little China National Opera House itself, on the 2nd Ring Road, east side, between Dongsi Shi Tiao and Chaoyangmen metro stations.  The stage is more than ample, there is fly space and space on stage left (none really on stage right), the pit probably could seat 60, there are two balconies above the main level, but there are only 3 ROWS OF SEATS on each level. About 250 seats in all.  I giggle whenever I walk inside.

The galas run the gamut from Offenbach to Siegfried, and feature many of the fine winners of the 6th China International Voice Competition, held i in Ningbo, where I served on the jury.  As we finish with Traviata Brindisi and Offenbach Can-can (anyone know its "real" name?"), I have worked with and convinced my colleague, Chen Bing, to come up with Mandarin lyrics for the Offenbach; here's hoping neither of us gets fired for our irreverence!

EXCITING NEWS to share -
Our two annual workshops have been POSTED:
April 24-26 - STRAVINSKY RITE OF SPRING and FIREBIRD SUITE at CCM
My good friend Neil Varon will be joining me on the faculty; come one, come all!

July 22-August 8 - OPERA BOOTCAMP: "CREATING CARMEN"
Our most ambitious project, hence the addition of a few extra days on the front end.  Will be joined by a great staff of master teachers, including Ken Weiss and Marie-France Lefebrve.  So let's get your TOREADOR on!

SPREAD THE WORD!

On other interesting news:
For those of you who haven't already heard, Oxford University Press is picking up the book, "The Beat Stops Here."  TO ALL OF YOU WHO HAVE FOLLOWED THIS BLOG, THANK YOU.

To close, a thought about CONDUCTING:
Think about how instruments are played, any instrument: Picture how a violinist holds a fiddle, arms at different heights, each hand making distinctly different motions.  An oboist holds the oboe in both hands, both close to the center of the body, one higher than the other.  A timpanist wields two sticks, with which s/he strikes the drums not both at the same time, but one after the other (with the occasional exception – Act 3, Madama Butterfly).  A trombonist holds his/her instrument horizontally, one hold stationary, close to the body, manipulating valves; the other moving back and forth, manipulating a slide.  All of these images would be helpful to us as conductors, were we to employ them.  What all instrumentalists have in common is 1) they hold their instruments close to their bodies, 2) they do distinctly different motions in both hands, and 3) they employ a full range of finger, wrist and arm motion to create sound.  And they all make DOWNWARD motions.

But the conventional “wisdom” of conducting, the orthodoxy of our craft, dictates that we begin with the hands on the same plane, doing the same thing at the same time, often rebounding too high and in the wrong direction.  So much UP conducting.  I confess to finding this confounding.  Just something to keep in mind as you work on your "not" beating.

BEST OF THE SEASON TO ALL OF YOU, Maestros, Maestras, Maestrini, Maestrissimi, and yes, even the Mae-stronzi… :)  MG

Siegfried in Beijing

    Greetings from Schiphol.  As I await my flight to China, I thought I would check in.  Siegfried is next to me, Tarnhelm in hand.  It is unbelievable to me that it took me this long to get into this extraordinary music drama. Discovering it word by word, harmony by harmony.
   I am up to now resisting listening to a recording.  I found a "classic" live performance from Bayreuth, 1953, led by none other than Clemens Krauss himself.  Listened to 10 minutes of it, I find that the Mime doesn't sing one correct pitch, it resembles Sprechstimme.  No sense in listening; one might as well learn it the old fashioned way, Langenscheidt in hand.
   Going back to work now.  I just wanted to remind my friends that, even on vacation, there is work.  There is Nothung to forge, and as they say, "Nothung ventured, Nothung gained."

Mark Gibson

"Quantifiable"

Dear friends, I'm sorry I've been away for so long.  A recent piece for the book; I hope it has meaning for some of you. - MG

QUANTIFIABLE

         Recently I was given the task of putting together a mechanism for assessing the progress of my conducting students.  It was not a suggestion; it was a mandate from my University.  From the State of Ohio.  I attended a nine-hour series of classes on how to construct a curriculum map, on defining program outcomes, on action verbs and Bloom’s Taxonomy.  I thought about everything we try to teach, and everything we hope our students will learn.  Everything that has to be assimilated, from scores to skills; from how to shake a concertmaster’s hand to how to read a painting of Caspar David Friedrich.  I thought about how I learned the craft, and about how I pieced together a career, how long it took; what one might call the “Last man standing” method.  I thought about NASM (National Association of Schools of Music) guidelines, about everything you have to KNOW, and everything you have to be able to DO.  From the languages one must understand and speak, to the physical gestures one must master to the point where they look easy.  About how we assimilate style, and acquire taste.  I told the instructor of the class that such a program assessment for orchestral conducting was not possible; she assured me that it was.

            She asked about our program requirements; I replied that there were few.  She asked about assigned readings; I told her there was only a “book club.”  She asked how I knew if my students read the books; I said that I didn’t.  She asked how I could determine if someone knew a score; I said that I could tell just by watching them conduct.  She was left incredulous at my unsystematic approach to teaching.  But she was no less exasperated than I.  The question I finally asked her was this: “How do you quantify pain?”  According to the Buddhist tradition: “If you seek the great Enlightenment, prepare to sweat hot beads.”

            I thought of a great quote from Bill Buford, one that I use frequently in my teaching.  He wrote about the process of becoming a chef to the effect that one simply does and does and does until one eventually knows more than others and learns the craft. I was never taught specifically how to do my job.  I don’t have a degree in my field of expertise, nor do I have a doctorate in anything.  Yet I have a career.  I have studied music for 51 years and have worked in the field for 33, and ultimately I mastered my craft.  I have just done it longer than anyone else and eventually learned a lot of scores, acquired a lot of tools and picked up a lot of tricks. Never was I called on to quantify what I learned or how I learned it.  My teacher, Gustav Meier, used to say, “You gotta KNOW!”  I put it this way: “Si sa, o non si sa.” 

            If you want a conducting career, it also helps if you don’t really want worldly possessions, or can cope with challenging steady relationships.  A spouse, a child, a car, a house.   It helps is you pack light, as I tell our voice students.  It helps if you are thick-skinned; if you are smart.  It helps if you don’t mind having the crap beaten out of you, emotionally if not physically.  It helps if you understand the language of sound.  If you know how to hold a knife and fork, this is useful.  If you know all of the important symphonic works in the key of E-Flat Major, that is a good thing.  If you can do the diving board, toss the pasta, save vertical space and know how to drift, there is hope for you.  If you understand Schenkerian analysis and like the blues, don’t quit yet.  If you appreciate Barnett Newman and Gerhard Richter, you have a chance.  If you understand soccer and baseball, you will gain insight into orchestral thinking.  If you can predict the future and read a soprano’s mind, you might get through “Mi chiamano Mimi.” If you know how to dress and speak three languages, you might survive.  If you know – and I mean, KNOW – a few hundred scores, there may be a path forward.  Above all, if you are curious, there IS a way forward.  Curiosity is the key to learning.  It too is not quantifiable.

            Back to the assessment plan.  The one thing I couldn’t do is what I was asked to do, and yet I cobbled together a map, a plan that someone from the outside could decipher and assess.  Because ultimately that was my task – to compile an assessment that itself could be assessed.  Please note that we haven’t even used the word “art” yet.  And in some vague sense, that is what my students want; they want to learn how to “make art” with an orchestra.  And of course they want to get paid for it.  They see video of the up-and-comers, of the living masters, of the podium legends.  They don’t want to conduct the pops concerts, the family series, “Tubby the Tuba.”  They watch their YouTube, their Googles, their Bings.  And they think that conducting has something to do with any of what they see online.

            There is nothing “sexy” about mastery of our craft, nor about our career path.  People win competitions and positions; I know neither how or why.  There is little that is quantifiable in terms of progress.  One can test for various skills – sight-singing, score reading, dictation, “drop the needle,” but there are simply too many intangibles.  One cannot assess score study, for even if one knows the score, it doesn’t mean that one understands the language.   Meanwhile, to quantify actual conducting denies a basic premise – I don’t want my students to look like I do when they conduct, even if I want them to have craft tools to use when they need them.  You can’t quantify gesture, particularly gesture that is unrelated to a specific musical event.  And even if the orchestra plays together, there is no way to account for taste or style.

            We can’t quantify taste.  We can’t quantify style.  We can’t quantify knowledge of a score.  We can’t quantify gesture. We can’t quantify the measure of a man or woman.  Above all, we can’t quantify the meaning of sound, or our grasp of it.  In Lao Tse’s words, the Tao that can be explained is not the eternal Tao.

            And yet there is something to be said for assessing the mastery of certain skills, of knowledge of history, be it cultural, artistic or political.  If one knows not just the opus numbers and the dates of Brahms’s oeuvre, but the works themselves; if one has PLAYED or sung them, then that surely must enhance one’s understanding of the composer.  If one can read score at the piano well enough to decipher Mahler 9, one can get one’s fingers dirty with the sounds, the harmonies, the dissonances.  If one knows what was happening in the world when Bizet wrote Carmen in 1875, if one can read and understand the French, if one has read the Merimée novella, one might understand why the work was so unique, so revolutionary.  Why it failed at first, and why it is beloved today.  The more dots of repertoire and craft one has, the more dots one can connect. And that IS quantifiable.  After which, as a former student of mine memorably remarked, when all else is in place, art shows up.

Mark Gibson, copyright 2014